


Days Without the Sun

by mordredslullabies



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Depression, F/M, M/M, Miscarriage, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-19 06:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11892462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mordredslullabies/pseuds/mordredslullabies
Summary: Merlin's younger sister Lilly thought her life was perfect. She met Mordred, married him, they were working on starting a family. And in a second, her life changed. Lilly isn't sure she knows how to live without Mordred. She's been traumatised by his death, unable to grieve properly. This is her story.





	1. Day 160 / February 6

**Author's Note:**

> Well, didn't think I would actually post this, since it's third person limited, focusing on an original character I created. And yet, I think I'm in such a shitty emotional place that even though I started this story years ago, I can't help picking it back up because I'm incredibly close to the story and this character Lilly I've created. 
> 
> Mordred's dead from the beginning. You hear more about the characters and their lives together through flashback scenes. Arthur and Merlin are together, kind of in the background, as this is Lilly's story. If you want a happy ending, you won't find one. This is a story about loss, grief, and what happens when you don't want to be helped. Slightly maybe takes a couple of ideas from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind. The Merlin characters live in modern times.
> 
> Work hasn't been edited, so if you see any mistakes or inconsistencies please let me know. I wrote these first few chapters years ago and haven't gone back and looked over the work because I can't force myself to.

_Day 160_

160 days without being able to breathe, without being able to focus on anything.  Without existing.  160 days since she’d last seen him, since—

She couldn’t say it anymore.  Her mind shut down.  She glanced out the window.  The sun was shining down, golden rays dispersing everywhere, lighting up the scene she was staring at.  She saw the trees gleaming in the light, the fresh green grass swaying in the gentle breeze.  She saw squirrels scurry up the bark of the trees, hoarding nuts in their mouths.  She saw an orange butterfly pause to rest on a sunflower.  Its wings pulsed back and forth, and if it had been another day perhaps, she would have found the sight absolutely breath taking.  Orange had been her favourite colour.  To any normal person, they would have looked out their window and smiled at the beautiful scenery, entranced by the sun and the warmth, symbolising happy things and bright, wonderful moments.  But none of this registered in her mind.  She looked out the window and everything was blank, a white canvas.  She didn’t see the beauty in the butterfly or feel the warmth of the sun on the glass.  She didn’t see vibrancy or happiness.  All she saw was the distinct colourless world of nothingness because it had been 160 days since she’d last seen him.  And she knew, deep in her bones, in her still throbbing heart, in the deepest recesses of her mind, with every ounce of anything she still had left inside of her, that he was never coming back.  That they were never going to get her happy ending.  They had been doomed from the start.

And that’s a funny thing to say.  Because she had always been overwhelmingly optimistic about life.  She’d been through some hard times, but she always had her faith.  She had startling hope.  She repeated those cliché phrases that everything happened for a reason, it’ll all work itself out, you just have to believe, to anyone that would listen to the girl who became the sun beaming hope and love and warmth to everyone, who provided a ray of light when there was only darkness.  She was sunshine and summer and everyone she met had loved her, had fallen in love with her without a second glance.  She was a firm believer in true love and hated tragic endings with all of her heart.  And perhaps that was her downfall.  The optimism was taken away from her and replaced with something much darker, because this was a problem that couldn’t work itself out.  True love had been her undoing.  Her happiness and her radiating life had been snuffed out so recklessly and she was left wondering if everything she’d ever believed had just been an ignorant ploy on her behalf.  She didn’t know anything anymore.  She barely even knew her own name.

Which, of course, she heard being called by her therapist.  When her mother realised her daughter wouldn’t get out of bed, wouldn’t move, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t talk, _couldn’t_ do any of these things, she’d taken matters into her own hands.  Therapy once a week, where she got to relive all of her worst nightmares.  But sometimes it wasn’t so bad.  Sometimes, for the whole hour, she felt okay again.  She felt some of that warmth she used to have.  She felt _something_ at least, even if when the hour ended and her therapist left and she was on her own again to remember the horrible thing that had happened 160 days ago, it left a jagged hole in her much worse than the session before.

“What are you thinking about, Lilly?” Dr Le Fay asked her.  Lilly looked up at the woman, someone so stunning sometimes it caught in her breath.  Her raven hair was shiny and silky and smooth and her green eyes looked like they knew all of Lilly’s secrets.  That’s why she hated her.  She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone truly knowing her, of seeing her so transparently.  He had been the only one who was allowed to do that.  She didn’t want anyone else but him.

Lilly averted her eyes, stared out the window some more.  The orange butterfly was gone and the squirrels were all the way high up in the branches, out of her sight.  She sighed, because nothing truly beautiful lasted forever.  It all had to go to ashes sometimes.

“I’m thinking it’s been 160 days,” she said.  “Does it get any easier?” she asked and she knew Dr Le Fay knew what she meant.

“With time.”

Liar.  It wasn’t going to get better, just worse.  Much worse after she kept counting the days he’d been gone, that he’d left her.

“I thought we weren’t going to focus on the negative things here.  That’s the whole point of talking about the positive things in therapy, Lilly.  I need you to focus on all the good days with Mordred, not the days it’s been since you’ve seen him.”

“I know,” Lilly said.  “Sorry.”

Dr Le Fay sighed.  “I know you are.  Have you chosen a good day you want to talk about?”

Lilly nodded.  “I want to tell you about the day I met Mordred.  In fact, it was a pretty shit day for me, but Mordred made it good.  Made it better than good…”

 

_February 6_

Lilly had been having a super off day, which was unusual for her, but not without reason.  No one seemed to notice she was a little off kilter.  It was like no one really knew the real her or cared enough to see the real her.  She wondered a little foolishly if she was really real at all and if this whole world was make believe, but she discarded that as a stupid silly notion.  Nothing this beautiful could ever be fake.  Life was amazing— _her_ life was amazing—just not today it wasn’t.

She’d woken up in a perfectly good mood.  She was awake before her alarm clock.  She set her record player on _Daydream Believer_ and was singing along under her breath as she opened her drawers and searched around for something to wear to school that day.  She laid her ice blue blouse, skirt, and stockings on her bed and walked to the bathroom to turn the water on.  She hummed along with the song as she looked out the window, a bluebird on the bird feeder she’d made, pecking away at the food she replenished every day when she got home from school.  She smiled with the beautiful irony and got in the shower, still humming along with the song.  She used her favourite shampoo that smelt of coconuts and made her dark hair shiny and washed her body with pomegranate scented soap.  She brushed her teeth and stepped out of the shower, wrapped in a towel.

She walked back into her bedroom, dried herself off, and got dressed in the clothes she’d laid out.  She couldn’t stop humming along with every song on the record that morning.  She was too excited, too happy, for when she got out of school and came home.  It was going to be a wonderful day and nothing could ruin her mood—

Except for her phone beeping with an unread voicemail.  Her Caller ID popped up as Merlin, her older brother, and she dialled her voicemail, biting her lip to keep her smile from splitting open her face.

“Hey, sis.  Too busy to pick up a call from your favourite brother?”  Her brother’s voice sounded exactly the same as she remembered it, smooth and rich and with a slight Irish accent from when he’d gone off to university there.  She closed her eyes and listened to his voice, anticipating getting to hear it in person again.  She hadn’t seen her brother in nearly 10 months and she missed him like crazy.

“Listen, I don’t want to ruin the best day of your life with tragic news, but it looks like I’m not gonna be able to make it down for your birthday dinner.  I know it’s a tradition, spending your birthday as a family, and trust me I wouldn’t miss this if I didn’t have to.  I miss you, Lill.  I miss hearing about your day and fighting with you over what to watch on the telly and cooking meals with you when mum’s had a rough day, and it’s been way too long since we’ve done any of that.  But I promise we will soon, yeah?  It’s just things have been really hectic here with rehearsals.  Some of the new guys still don’t know their lines and the chorus is a mess and the director’s scheduled mandatory rehearsal time all day today and tomorrow.  If I don’t show up, I’ll get kicked off the play, and I really want to do this play, Lill.  It’s all I’ve talked about for months, it’s everything I’ve worked so hard for.  And this could be my big break, you know?  I just can’t pass up this opportunity, not even for my loving and supportive little sister who probably wants to kill me right about now.

“I promise I’ll make it up to you, Lill.  Once this play is over I’ll be home for the summer and I’ll take you out for sibling bonding time, I promise.  And even though I can’t be there, Arthur is still coming, and he’ll bring a little piece of me with him.  I love you sis, and I’m sorry.  Happy birthday.”

Lilly pressed the end button on her phone and put the phone back on the bedside table where she last had it.  She’d been looking forward to the family dinner for months now— _months_ —and now her brother was cancelling on her.  Merlin had never missed her birthday dinner once in his life, he always made sure he was there for her.  He’d been the best big brother ever and had always been there when she needed something, not that she ever asked much.  He’d given her everything she could have ever asked for and that was enough.  But this hurt.  It stung her in a way she had never experienced before.  Lilly had been the listening ear when her brother called her at 2 am to rant about the rehearsals for this play.  She helped him run lines over the phone and always reassured him he had nothing to be nervous about and that he was an amazing actor.  She’d missed him the entire time and was supportive when things got hectic in her brother’s life and he couldn’t swing a visit back to the States to visit his family.  That had all been okay because she knew he would be here by her side at her birthday dinner like every year because she knew that’s the one time of the year when she could count on her brother and now she didn’t know what she could count on.

It’s not like Lilly didn’t understand why her brother couldn’t be there, but that didn’t make it any less painful to hear she wouldn’t be seeing him for another four months.  She’d been so excited to see her brother when she got home from school, to hug him and melt into his warmth and the ever-present scent of his cologne.  She needed that from him.  And now she was wondering why she even got out of bed in the first place.  It didn’t seem worth it anymore.

Her stomach grumbled and with a shaky sigh, and while willing herself not to start crying over Merlin, she rose up from her bed and descended the stairs towards the kitchen and the scent of waffles and syrup.  That was a tradition, too.  Her mother always made her chocolate chip waffles with the syrup they bought when they went to Canada, because maple syrup had been the best thing Lilly had ever tasted.  Her mom made the best chocolate chip waffles.

“Morning, birthday girl!” her mother said and hugged Lilly tight.  “Your birthday waffles are almost finished if you want to take a sit and wait for them.”

Lilly sat down on the barstool at the island and poured herself a glass of orange juice sitting there.  She watched her mother put the waffles onto the plate, slather a little butter over them, and pour the gooey syrup over everything, knowing just the exact amount of syrup Lilly liked on her waffles.  Her mother always noticed the little details like that with her children.

Her mother placed the plate of waffles in front of Lilly and smiled at her daughter.  “So, how does it feel to be 17?” she sang, smiling wide.

Lilly just shrugged and took the fork and knife in her hands, focused on cutting her waffles into little pieces before spearing a piece of syrup covered waffles and sticking it in her mouth.  It tasted like heaven, but Lilly couldn’t enjoy it like she normally would.  Today enjoying it just didn’t seem worth it.  “Feels like being 16,” she said once she’d swallowed her first bite.

Lilly’s mother pushed a strand of hair behind her daughter’s ear. “Baby, what’s wrong?  It isn’t like you to be so upset on your birthday.”  It wasn’t like her to be upset in general.  Not about these things, of course.  Lilly cried during sad movies.  She cried when she read the news where people had abused animals, but she was a pillar of strength normally in everyday life.  If anyone she knew was going through a tragedy, she would be there for support, no matter what.  The only time she’d ever been really, truly, tragically sad was when she found out her father passed away.  Other than that, she tried to look on the bright side of things.  But today she was sick of looking on the bright side.  She just wanted everything to go perfectly.

“Merlin called this morning,” she started.  She speared another piece of waffle with her fork and drowned it in the syrup leftover on the plate.  “He said he can’t make it tonight for dinner.”  She took the bite of waffle so she wouldn’t have to explain anything further.

Her mother gave her a sad, sort of watery smile.  She missed Merlin just as much as Lilly did.  “I know, sweetie.  It must hurt to not have your brother here, especially when it’s been so long since you’ve last seen him.”

Lilly swallowed her bite of waffle and shrugged again.  “Yeah, I guess.  But Arthur’s still coming so I guess things will still be good.”  She tried to smile convincingly at her mother, who seemed oblivious to her daughter’s fakeness.

“That’s the spirit!  I’ve got to get to work, but I’ll be here when you get home from school.  Have a wonderful day.  Happy birthday, Lilly.”  She kissed Lilly’s forehead and grabbed her purse and keys off the counter and exited the front door, leaving Lilly alone with a plate of waffles and a heavy heart.

She took a swig of her orange juice and forced herself to finish the rest of her waffles before washing the plate and sticking it in the dishwasher.  She ripped a sticky note off the package and stuck it on the refrigerator door where she knew her mom would see it.  _Thanks for the birthday waffles, mom.  Delicious as ever!_ she wrote on it.  Then she grabbed her school things and left the house and waited at the corner for her school bus to pick her up.

She didn’t have a car yet.  She was 17 and didn’t have her license and that didn’t bother her at all.  All her school friends couldn’t wait to get their license and for their parents to buy them their first car and drive around with their music blaring and the windows rolled down and driving fast to anywhere and everywhere.  It was something dangerous and cool and it made it seem like they were grownup, when in fact they were still just kids, troubled by the things that haunt them.  In those few hours in the car though, they felt invincible.  Lilly understood that rush.  She just didn’t need it.  Besides, she decided she was going to be a horrible driver anyway.  And why should she need to learn how to drive when after school finished she was just going to move up to London to live with her uncle and become an artist anyway?  No one drove on the streets of London and if they did she would be loath to do so herself when she could easily take the subway or a bus or a taxi to anywhere she pleased.

Lilly’s usual crowd wasn’t at the bus today.  They were all on a field trip in another state.  Money was tight in Lilly’s household and her mother refused to let her get a job to help pay for the bills.  Her friends had been really apologetic about leaving her on her birthday, but Lilly had waved them away and told them to go enjoy their museum field trip and to take lots of pictures of Van Gogh paintings for her since she couldn’t be there.  She had been okay with her friends being gone until she’d learned Merlin was ditching her, and then she just felt explicably alone and hollow on the day where she should have felt loved.

The creaking yellow bus rounded the corner and stopped for her and she entered, sitting in her usual spot.  She stared out the window at the blurring green leaves as the bus whirred along.  She watched the kids load on to the bus with every stop it made.  She sat there and thought about how she hadn’t been this bummed about anything in a long time and wasn’t sure why her brain chose today to make her this sad.

Lilly went to her classes and took notes without listening to what her teachers really had to say.  She read all of Act One of _The Tempest_ without remembering she’d read anything.  She ate lunch in the cafeteria with other people, smiling when someone said something funny and responding when someone asked a question, but not really hearing anything they really had to say.  She finished her classes and got back on the bus and did her homework instead of conversing with the other kids until she reached her stop and unloaded, walked the short distance to her house.

As soon as she opened the front door to her home she heard Arthur’s unmistakably booming laugh.  She set her backpack down by the side of the door and entered the living room where her mother and Arthur were, sitting on the couch with cups of tea in their laps.  They set the tea on the coffee table and stood up from the couch to greet her.  Arthur enveloped her in a hug and whispered happy birthday into her ear.

She smiled at him as she pulled away.  “Thanks.”

They sat back down on the couch.  Arthur beamed at her, all golden and wonderful and looking a lot happier than she’d seen him before.  “Wow, Lilly, it’s been too long since I’ve seen you!  You look so grown up!”

She smiled at Arthur.  She hadn’t seen him in about a year and a half and that had not been under the best circumstances.  Merlin had come home, dragging a broken Arthur in tow.  Arthur’s eyes had purple bruises underneath them, the shiny blue turned to a murky, watery blue that seemed lifeless on someone she was so used to seeing a blinding smile from.  Not once did he throw his head all the way back and give a deep throaty laugh, his Adam’s Apple bobbing like she was so used to seeing.  He seemed broken, a shell of himself.

Merlin and his mother had whispered in the kitchen over cups of tea about Arthur’s father being in an accident, how it didn’t look good, that the doctors have him two weeks at most before he died.  Arthur’s father had been the only family he had left after his mother died in childbirth.  Lilly had met his father Uther a couple of times now and he always scared her.  He was cold and judgmental of his son and she couldn’t see why Arthur tried so hard to please a man who would always find some flaw in everything he did.  But he was family and Arthur loved his dad despite his shortcomings.  Her father had his shortcomings too and she remembered the ache in her chest when he died and she wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.

Arthur had been polite the couple of days they were home.  He was quiet and helped out around the house without complaining and smiled a vacant sort of smile.  His body was there, but his mind had left the building, too filled with grief and trying not to let it show.  Merlin and Arthur had left almost as quickly as they came and sure enough three weeks later Merlin called the house, a sigh on his lips, and said they were planning the funeral for the day after tomorrow.  Lilly and her mom had gone to London to show their support for her brother’s boyfriend.  Arthur had been a mess but Lilly had gotten a chance to sit down and really speak to him and offer her condolences and after that Arthur seemed a little more optimistic, but he still looked broken.  She left back for the States and told Arthur he could call her if things ever got bad again.  After all, he was practically family, and family stuck together no matter what.

Over time she knew Arthur’s life had changed somewhat.  He and Merlin had moved in with each other and after going over Uther’s will and surveying his personal items from the house, Arthur had learned he had a half-sister and went in search of her.  Her name was Morgana and she worked as a therapist for troubled youths in Ireland and once she learned of Arthur she embraced him fully with her warm heart and had become a part of the family too, with her kind smiles and her fierce love and loyalty.  She helped bring Arthur out of the darkness and wouldn’t let him drown himself in the company Uther had left behind for him.  She knew Arthur had been doing well and he’d been just as excited as Merlin had when they discovered Merlin got the lead in this play he was auditioning for, even when he knew it meant his boyfriend was going to be working a lot and was going to be under a lot more stress than normal.  The two were nauseatingly in love and Lilly had enjoyed every second of it, knowing they made each other happy.

Now that he was sitting in front of her after all these years, it was hard to think Arthur had ever been unhappy.  His blue eyes were sparkling again just like they used to and he was smiling wide and he was happy.

“Oh, please!” she protested.  “I do not!”

“You do too.”

She smiled at him softly.  “It’s good to see you, too,” she said.

“Your brother’s sorry he couldn’t make it.  He wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

“I know, I understand.  I’m glad you’re here, though.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it, either.  If I’m gonna be a part of this family, I’ve gotta do the whole birthday dinner thing, don’t I?”

“You’re already a part of this family, Arthur,” she said, because it was true.  She’d thought of him as her brother as soon as Merlin had called her up that third year of university, breathing shakily over the phone.

“I think I’m in love with Arthur,” he said.  “I think I’m so in love that it hurts.  I don’t know what I’d do without him anymore.  He’s everything I didn’t know I was waiting for.  It’s like this pain in my chest at knowing I have so much to lose but it’s also the best feeling in the world knowing I’m with the one person I want to spend the rest of my life with.  You know?”

Lilly hadn’t known, but Merlin and Arthur had been getting way serious.  She knew her brother didn’t take things like falling in love quite so easily after Will had smashed his heart into a million pieces in high school.  And if Arthur hade her brother feel like the world would end if he didn’t exist, then Arthur was her family too.

“I know, but I want to make it official.  I’ve been thinking about proposing to Merlin.  I know I’m not one for all that sappy stuff, but your brother’s a romantic idiot and this is the least I can do to show him how much I love him.”

“Oh, Arthur!” her mother cooed, embracing him tightly.  “Oh, I’m so excited and happy for you two!  Merlin is so blessed to have you in his life!  Oh, I can’t wait to tell the world my son is engaged to the best man on earth!”

Lilly’s mouth quirked up at the corners, but it never reached her eyes.  She was happy they were going to get married, because of course Merlin was going to say yes, but couldn’t Arthur have waited till tomorrow to break the news to them?  I mean, after all, it _was_ her birthday.  Her brother ditched her for rehearsals and her friends had ditched her for a field trip and she’d gone all day feeling like a zombie and no one had noticed.  She was supposed to feel good on her birthday, not like everyone was moving on with their lives and forgetting about her.  Wasn’t she special, too?

The congratulations that flew out of her mouth didn’t sound like it was coming from her.  She felt detached from the scene, useless.  Abandoned.

“This deserves a toast!” her mother exclaimed.  “I was waiting to break out the good champagne for a special occasion and I think I finally found one!”  She clapped her hands excitedly and went off in search of the champagne bottle and some glasses for him to toast to. 

She came back a few minutes later, balancing three glasses in one arm and carrying the champagne bottle in the other, a skill she’d never exactly forgotten from her waitressing days.  She gave Arthur a glass, which he gladly accepted, and the other she offered to Lilly, who didn’t like champagne but took it anyway.

“To Arthur and Merlin,” her mother said, “and for the wonderful future they have in store for them together. I couldn’t be more happy or proud of both of them than I am now.”

They all three clinked their classes together and Lilly sipped at the sweet champagne, grimacing at the fizziness and swallowed it without coughing too hard at the taste.  Her mother was chatting to Arthur excitedly about the proposal and Lilly felt a little left out, so she told them she’d be outside until the food was ready, and gladly escaped out the front door in favour of her porch steps.

It was then, sitting there, that she finally let herself cry.  She felt stupid crying over something so silly, but today had just been an overall really bad day for her and she wasn’t even sure what was wrong.  Usually she wasn’t so selfish or stubborn and these things normally didn’t get to her and she didn’t know why it was bothering her today.  She only knew that she had been holding it together for too long and she just needed to cry about everything right then.

She had been reduced to sniffling and wiping away the tears with the back of her hand when she heard a voice asking her if she was okay.  She looked up and saw a boy there, a skateboard in his hands.  His jeans had grease all over them and were ripped to shreds and his knee was oozing blood from it.  He wore a gray v-neck that was tight over his wiry arms.  He had the kindest blue eyes she had ever seen, a shade that was similar to her brother’s and Arthur’s, but so different in a way.  It was something she couldn’t put her finger on.  His light brown hair was impossibly curly and flopped into his eyes as he looked down on her with genuine concern and it made her laugh through the tears.

“Of course I’m okay,” she said.  She was.  She’d be fine.  She just needed to cry and compose herself and she’d be okay again.

“I don’t know.  Tears usually mean you’re upset about something.”  His voice and soft and melodic and it sounded like he meant every word he spoke.  “May I?” he asked her, pointing to the area next to her on the porch steps.  She nodded her head and he sat down next to her, dumping his skateboard on the ground at his feet.

“What happened to your knee?” she asked him.

“Just a skating accident.  It’s nothing.”

“You should really get that cleaned.  I have an emergency kit in the house if you want me to bandage it up for you.”

He laughed softly.  “No thanks, Florence Nightingale.  I think I’ll take my chances.  Besides, I didn’t come here to be looked after.  I came here to see if you were looked after.  Now what’s got you all upset?”

Lilly flushed crimson at the nickname and for all the reasons she had been crying.  “It’s really nothing.  Just stupid stuff.”

“Stupid or not, something made you cry, so it’s gotta be something important to you.  Come on.  Why does someone who looks like the sun usually shines outta their ass look so gloomy?”

That made her laugh.  She was the sunshine normally, but not today.  She had no idea people notice she was always in a bright mood.  It just came so effortlessly to her.  She decided she liked this guy.  She’d never seen him before; not around the neighbourhood or at school or anything, but he still seemed really familiar to her in a way that made her want to spill all her secrets.  She knew he would always be there to listen to her.  She didn’t know how she knew it, but looking at him made her feel like everything would be okay again.

“My brother couldn’t make it down for my birthday today.  He’s too busy with work and I haven’t seen him in almost a year.  My friends weren’t there at school today because they went on a trip I couldn’t afford.  My brother’s boyfriend came in place of my brother, but he just dropped this bombshell that he’s gonna propose soon and it’s all my mom can talk about so I’m hiding out here until someone notices I’m gone.”

“Ah, that’s a tricky thing to fix,” he said.  “You’re close to your brother?”

Lilly smiled.  “Yeah.  Really close.”

“You know when you’ll see him again?”

She nodded.  “In June.  He’ll be here all summer long.”

“That’s good.  How about you spend your time counting down the days until you see him again?  It’s more fun to look forward to something that’s worthwhile than dwell on all the days you’ve spend without seeing your brother.”

Lilly thought about that for a second.  It made sense.  If she just stopped worrying about her brother not being here today and focused on all the ways he could make up for it when she did see him again, she’d be in a lot better mood.  Maybe she’d even miss him a little bit less.  “I like that,” she said.

“I’m afraid I can’t help fix the friend problem.  But I bet you they’re sorry you couldn’t come and you guys will have some sleepover things this weekend and do whatever girls do.  And then you won’t remember how lonely you felt without them on your birthday because they’ll be there to make it up to you, just like with your brother.”

She nodded.  “Yeah, I suppose we did plan a sleepover type thing with all of us for this weekend.  They made me a cookie cake and everything.”

“See?  Food fixes everything, yeah?”

“Of course,” she said seriously.  Lilly did love food.

“And about your brother’s boyfriend, I know it hurts he took the attention away from you when you were having a really horrible day.  You’re probably jealous, but I know you’re happy for them, too.  I can see it written all over your face.  So be happy for them.  You won’t remember how sad it made you feel tomorrow.  Celebrate the good and forget about the bad.  Don’t let it get you down.  You’ve got people who love you.  A brother and a future brother in law and I’m assuming loving parents?” he asked.

“It’s just my mom.  My dad died a few years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.  I know how that is.  It’s just me and my dad, no mom.  No siblings, either.  At least you’ve got that.  You’ve got friends and I just moved here and don’t know anyone, besides a sad girl on her porch worried about things on her birthday when she’s supposed to be celebrating.”

“Well, this sad girl feels a lot less sad since the boy with the skateboard came into her life and talked some sense into her.”

“See?  I knew I could make you feel better.”  He grinned at her and for a moment Lilly thought she couldn’t breathe, blinded by how beautiful he was and how warm he made her feel.

“I’m Mordred, by the way,” he said, sticking out his hand for her to shake.

“Lilly.”

“Nice to meet you, Lilly.”

“You too.  So, you live around here?  What school are you going to?”

“Yeah, I live way down there,” he said, pointing to a cluster of houses that ended with a cul-de-sac.  “And I’m going to Morrison,” he said.  “Third year.”

“Me too.  If you see me around at school or around the neighbourhood, don’t hesitate to come say hi.  I would really like to be your friend, Mordred.”

“I’d like to be yours too, Lilly,” he said.  “I don’t know what it is about you, but I feel like anything’s possible when I talk to you.  I would much like to test that theory out further.”

They both grinned at each other stupidly until Lilly’s front door swung open and Arthur stood there, looking at them both, laughing to himself at the way they were staring at each other and remembering how he and Merlin used to do that when they first met at university.  “Hey, Lill, your mum said dinner’s ready.  I’ve never exactly had a vegetarian lasagne and I don’t much like vegetables, but your mum’s cooking smells really delicious.  And plus, it’s your favourite.”

“Okay, I’ll be inside in a second,” Lilly said after she and Mordred had both turned around and looked at him as he spoke.

Mordred got up off the kerb and dusted his hands off on his jeans.  “You’re the future brother-in-law I presume?  I’m Mordred, a friend of Lilly’s.”

“Arthur,” he said, shaking Mordred’s hand.

“So I guess I’ll see you at school then?” Mordred asked Lilly while helping pull her up off the porch.

“Definitely,” she said.  “Make sure you take care of that cut on your knee.  If I don’t see it properly bandaged tomorrow I’m making sure I clean it myself.  Can’t have you getting an infection on me.”

“Of course.  Then I might die and leave you alone without experiencing all the many adventures I have planned for us in the future.”

Lilly laughed at that, probably louder than she should have.  “See ya,” she said.

Mordred waved.  “Bye.”  She watched him climb on to his skateboard and skate away from her before turning back to Arthur’s quirked eyebrow and knowing smirk at the front door.

“What?” she asked, confused.

“Friend, my ass,” he mumbled.

She mock punched him as they walked in and shut the door.  The aroma of cheese and sauce filled her nostrils.  Mordred made her realise that things weren’t always as bad as they seem.  She was able to smile and laugh and carry a conversation all the way through dinner and even after and genuinely meant all of it.  She was having fun talking to Arthur and teasing her mother and she was so caught up in the wonderfulness of it all that she forgot all the reasons why she had been upset in the first place.

As Lilly was in her bed that night, staring up at the glow in the dark stars still on her ceiling from when she was younger, she thought about how Mordred had swooped in and with a few words had completely turned her day around.  He had been her knight in shining armour with his kind blue eyes and his floppy hair and genuine grin and kind words and she knew that his presence in her life would be something life altering, something she couldn’t walk away from so easily.  That thought left a pit in her stomach and she tossed and turned all night long, scared at the thought he could possibly mean so much to her and eager to make room in her life for someone as special as him.

 

Lilly was brought back into herself and her current location, here in the room with Morgana, her therapist, who was going to make her all right again by having her focus on the positive days with Mordred instead of dwell on the number of days since she’d seen him.  That had been Morgana’s idea in an attempt to get Lilly over Mordred’s death.  After all, it’s what she and Mordred has always done when they were worried about something.  It had been their secret way of doing things and the other had always been there to remind them when things got bad.  Except now Mordred wasn’t here anymore to help her make it through.  She didn’t have her husband to lean on anymore.  She felt like she didn’t have anyone.  She only had memories of Mordred and she wanted to share those with Morgana, because maybe that’ll make things okay again, even if she can’t bring Mordred back to life or turn back time.

“Did my brother really steal your thunder by announcing he was going to propose?” Morgana asked, laughing.

“Yeah,” Lilly said.  It didn’t seem to funny to her right now.  She’d lost her sense of humour 160 days ago.

“That sounds _just_ like him, the pillock.”

Lilly nodded.

“It also sounds like Mordred wanted you to dwell on the good things and stop focusing so much on the bad.  What do you think he’d say about you mourning his death?”

Lilly swallowed.  “He’d be mad at me for giving in to depression.  He’d be disappointed that I’ve spent 160 days suffering over my loss instead of remembering the days we had together.”

“And that’s why you’re in therapy, to help you remember and cherish those days without forgetting the reason why you suffered your loss.  I’m here to help you cope with the pain.”

“I know.”

Morgana nodded.  “Lilly, I know it’s been hard to talk about Mordred, to relive all these memories.  It must be painful for you to talk about them and then to know you’ll never experience anymore days like them in the future.  I know it’s been especially hard for you to talk to my brother and Merlin, to look at them and not be bitter that they share a life together when you can never have that with Mordred anymore.”

She’d hit the nail on the head.  That was everything Lilly had been experiencing.  She wasn’t exactly the nicest person to them nowadays.  She got mad at them easily, couldn’t be in the same room as them anymore.  It just hurt too much.  Why did they get their happy ending when she didn’t?

“But I do know that one day you’ll be able to cope with this pain.  I’m not asking you to forget about Mordred, to let him go completely.  I just want you to learn how to live without him and to remember him as he’d want to be remembered.”

“I know,” Lilly said again, because she knew that Morgana was here for her in that way.  She trusted her.  She knew what she was doing.  Morgana had said she’d made progress, a lot more progress since their first therapy session, and Lilly knew she was right.  When Morgana had even mentioned Mordred’s name, or mentioned that he died, she’d freaked out on her, started screaming, throwing things around the room, refusing to except reality, until she collapsed in her sister-in-law’s arms.  She’d thrown the water glass at the wall one session when Morgana asked her if she could talk about Mordred’s last day: when she last saw him, what they both did that day, the last thing she ever said to him, the reason why he’d died.  She’d stormed out of the room and seemed worse than she had before.  Lilly still couldn’t talk about the day he died, but she’d been opening up to Morgana more.  She could say Mordred’s name now.  She could talk about the fact he died, could accept that he was gone.  She just didn’t want to live on a planet anymore when Mordred wasn’t on it.

She knew she’d get there eventually.  Everything is always darkest before the dawn, right?  It was a huge gaping darkness that swallowed her up, that blocked out the sunlight.  It was an interminable winter that chilled her to the bone, that left her frozen solid and walking on thin ice.  She was missing something inside her and didn’t know if she wanted to crawl out of that eternal darkness and face the sunshine again.  Wasn’t sure what would happen if she did.

“Do you wanna talk about the day Mordred died yet, Lilly?”

Lilly’s throat seemed to collapse on her and she struggled to be able to breathe, panicked out of her mind.  She couldn’t.  Not yet.  She couldn’t.  She shook her head wildly and tries to focus on calm breathing.

“Okay.  That’s okay.  No pressure.  Whenever you’re ready.  We’re doing this at your own pace.”

Lilly nodded her head and her breathing slowed down, her air passage finally becoming less blocked.  She could breathe again.  She was still choking on air, bogged down by the weight of her grief, but there was air in her lungs.

“I don’t think I wanna talk anymore today,” Lilly said, her voice wavering heavily, much to her chagrin.

“Okay.  I’ll see you tomorrow night hopefully for Arthur and Merlin’s anniversary.”

Lilly didn’t think she was going to make it.  She’d rather die than have to pretend to be happy.  She didn’t want her family to see her like this.  She didn’t want to see the worry etched on their faces, their concern, their genuine fright over her state.  She already felt guilty enough over putting them through all of this.  She didn’t think she could be in a room full of a celebration of love when she had lost her love, her life.  What would Merlin do if Arthur had died?  He’d be a lifeless person like she was.  Arthur was his life and Mordred had been hers and she couldn’t see someone be happy when she’d lost her life 160 days ago.  But Lilly nodded as Morgana got up and ruffled her hair and left the room.

Lilly just kind of sat there, staring at the place Morgana had been sitting.  She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there before she snapped out of it and remembered she was alone and in so much crippling pain she just wanted it to go away.  She curled into a ball on her bed, her knees to her chest, and closed her eyes, breathed in and out, because that’s the only thing she knew how to do, the only thing she could do for now.

The sun was down and the stars were out when she finally opened her eyes again and she looked at the clock on her bedside table.

“160 days without you, Mordred,” she whispered to the empty room, pitch black.  “Still miss you every day.”

She closed her eyes again and slept for 12 hours trying to forget she was even alive.


	2. Day 49 / June 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I don't think anyone is actually reading this, but I'm just gonna post it because why the hell not? This story is what I go to any time I'm having a bad day, and since I'm dealing with anxiety and depression, it's quite a bit. And yet I've been writing this story for three years and it's still not finished. Whatever.
> 
> Side note, I know you're not actually allowed to be a therapist for family member or anyone you know so there's no ethical way Morgana could legally be Lilly's therapist, but suspension of disbelief, people. Pretend these laws don't exist. Again, it's unedited, so I'm sorry if there are mistakes.

_Day 49_

49 days since he’d left her.  The mantra kept repeating in Lilly’s head over and over again.  49 days since everything fell apart and she still didn’t know what to do.

She didn’t think her mom knew what to do either, but it’s lot like Lilly could really focus on that at the moment.  There was this constant ringing in her ears and this photo of her and Mordred in her hands, slightly wearing and creased from how many times she’d held it, run her fingers over his face.  Him fading had begun to scare her because she couldn’t lose him, not in photographs, not when he wasn’t really there to take her in his arms and kiss her forehead and make her feel safe again and make her laugh and forget she was ever sad.  That wasn’t going to happen.  All she could do was hold on to the photograph of them on Christmas, him dressed up like the Doctor holding a sonic screwdriver up and Lilly in a cheesy sweater that was family tradition for her and Merlin.  There was mistletoe hanging above their hands and their smiles were wide.  His blue eyes danced and her hazel ones gleamed.  Mordred had his arm around her shoulder and her arm was around his midsection, her head just barely grazing the top of his shoulders, and they looked so happy and carefree and she wanted to remember that with such aching clarity because she’d never been happier in her life.  They’d made each other small presents and all sat around the telly with eggnog and watched the _Doctor Who_ Christmas special together and they felt like nothing in the world could touch them.  But they were wrong, so wrong, and Lilly was feeling the awful brutality of being wrong.

She didn’t register it as her mom shook her shoulder, called her daughter’s name over and over again.  She was crying and pleaded and screaming that she wanted her daughter back and telling her son Merlin on the phone that she didn’t know how to help her.  The only time Hunith ever saw her daughter react to her surrounding was when she tried to take the picture of her and Mordred out of Lilly’s hands.  Lilly had screamed her head off until and hyperventilated, saying she needed it, couldn’t part from it, yelling at her mom to give it back to her.  Perplexed, Hunith handed it back and Lilly seemed to shrink into herself again, curling up and staring at Mordred’s face, tears drying on her pale cheeks.

When she told Merlin this, and recounted how Lilly had lost a lot of weight since Mordred’s death, Merlin had sighed over the phone.  He was extremely upset to see his sister go through this.  He had been a wreck when their father Balinor died a few years back, mainly because he actually knew their father.  Balinor and Hunith had gotten a divorce when Lilly was only two years old and Merlin had been nine at the time.  He and Lilly saw their father on holidays and other special occasions, which probably made it less painful for his sister when he died, especially since she always tended to look on the bright side of things.  Merlin had had Arthur to lean on then, and in turn Arthur had had him to lean on when his father died.  He’d nursed his boyfriend back to health and stood by him with everything that came to follow.

“Listen, Mum, Arthur’s sister Morgana deals with death and grief as a therapist here in London.  I’m sure she would be more than happy to come down to the States and help Lilly.  She’s really good at what she does and she does a lot of pro bono cases.”

“Therapy, Merlin?” Hunith asked.  “I can’t get your sister to talk.  I don’t think she knows anything that’s going on around her.  She just stares at that photo of her and Mordred like maybe if she looked at him hard enough he’d come back to life.  How am I going to get her lucid for a whole therapy session?”

“Why don’t I go ahead and ask Morgana what she thinks?  I can get her to talk to you and you two can go from there?  I want to see Lill get better just as much as you do, Mum.  This might be the only way to start the healing process.”

Hunith sighed.  “All right.  I’ll think about it.  I love you, Merlin.  Stay safe.”

“Love you too, Mum.”

Lilly wasn’t aware of this conversation between her family members.  She only registered the deafening ringing in her ears and Mordred’s face and those 49 days since she’d last seen it in person.  When her mother came in the room later and guided Lilly into the bathroom, stripped her of all her clothes and bathed her, since Lilly was incapable of doing it herself.  Honestly, how would she have had the strength to?  She was nothing.  She was bones and sorrow, grief and longing, sadness and betrayal, and those things didn’t understand a concept like getting out of bed.  Like eating.  Like personal hygiene.  All the things she used to do so effortlessly she could never do.  She couldn’t even listen to _Daydream Believer_ anymore.  She’d tried once, and got so furious and heartbroken that she’d ripped it out of the record player and smashed it against the wall, breathing heavily afterwards and stared at the shards on the carpet for a long time before blinking at the mess and leaving it there in favour of her bed.  The water was warm on her frozen skin but it didn’t feel good like she knew it was supposed to.  Hunith dressed her in cotton pyjamas and brushed her hair.  And that’s when Lilly looked at herself in the mirror for the first time since Mordred’s death.

She knew she looked different, but couldn’t seem to care or compute any of those changes.  Her wet hair seemed maybe thinner than it had been before.  Her face was drawn out and tight across her bones, tinted a sickly off-white colour.  The pyjamas hung off her frame more than usual.  Her usually gleaming eyes were now just a dull, flat brown, no sparkle or life in them.  She supposed she didn’t look healthy to the casual viewer, but couldn’t bring herself to care.  Why should she care what she looked like?  It was 49 days without Mordred and there would be lots more in the future.  Nothing else mattered but those 49 days.

Hunith tucked Lilly into bed after brushing the tangles out of her hair, but Lilly didn’t fall asleep right away.  She was still clutching the photo of her and Mordred tight in her fingers and staring dispassionately at the white walls of her bedroom.  She stared what felt like hours before finally closing her eyes and praying to a God she wasn’t sure existed anymore to let her just sleep forever, to stop letting her miss Mordred.

And when she did sleep, she dreamed of a summer day with Mordred, a day that made her feel like anything was possible.

 

_June 30_

“Mordred!” Lilly squealed as her boyfriend poked her side.  She squirmed with every poke.  Mordred knew she was ticklish and she told him to stop every time he tickled her but he just found it too amusing.

He laughed and stopped poking her.  “Sorry.  It’s funny.”

They were lying in the grass in Mordred’s backyard, the sun beaming down on them and making the grass smell fresh and wonderful.  Mordred’s sleeves were pushed up to his elbows and Lilly had on jean shorts and a yellow shirt, not caring if either one got horrendous grass stains on them.  She was soaking up the sun on her tanned skin and humming a tune under her breath, glad for Mordred at her side.  She moved her head to glare at him.  “Is not,” she protested.

A grin broke out on Mordred’s face.  “Okay.  It’s not.”

She smiled at him and turned her head back towards the sun, closing her eyes again as she did so.  She felt Mordred’s fingers entwine with hers and she grasped back.

“You know what this reminds me of?” he asked her.

“What?”

“That episode of _Skins,_ with Effy and Freddie.”

Lilly snorted.  “You mean the episode where Effy went crazy and hallucinated monsters were after her?”

“Okay, not that part.  But Freddie took her to the park there in Bristol, and they laid on the grass too, and she talked about how much she loved him.  And for a moment, she seemed lucid, she seemed okay, because of the power of her love for Freddie was stronger than any weapon used against her.”

“Mmm,” Lilly hummed.  “Except I’m nothing like Effy.”

Mordred let out a belting laugh.  “That you aren’t.  You’re more like Pandora.”

Lilly made a protesting noise and moved to look at her boyfriend who was grinning at her, the sun in his eyes, making the blue blend in with the sky.  “I take offense to that!  Besides, if I’m Pandora, that means you’re Thomas, and you’re nothing like him.”

“You’re right, I’m definitely not like Thomas.”

“No, you’re more like Maxxie.”

“Maxxie was gay!”

“So?  You’re like Chris then.”

“Chris died, leaving Jal pregnant and alone!”

Lilly laughed.  “Okay.  So we’re not exactly _Skins_ material.  But it was fun to pretend for a second.”

Mordred leaned closer and kissed Lilly.  He tasted like lemonade and love and Lilly didn’t want the moment to end.

When they parted, Lilly stared into Mordred’s eyes for a few moments, sobered up and serious.  “Promise you’ll never die and leave me alone.  I don’t know what I’d do without you, Mordred.”

“I promise I won’t ever leave you, love.  If I die, I hope it’s when I’m old and gray and I’m sitting next to you on a porch swing surrounded by our grandkids.  Kind of cliché, isn’t it?”

She smiled.  “Cliché is good.”

“And I promise I won’t die and leave you pregnant and alone like Jal.”

Lilly laughed again.  “Of course you won’t.”

Mordred sat up and Lilly sat up with him.  “You wanna ask your brother and Arthur to go get ice cream with us?”

“Okay.  As long as we get frozen yoghurt instead.”

“It’s summer.  We eat ice cream in summer, Lilly, not frozen yoghurt.”

“I like frozen yoghurt better!  And besides, my brother’s lactose intolerant and they have dairy free froyo here.”

Mordred sighed heavily.  “Have I ever told you it’s impossible to say no to you.”

Lilly bit her lip and nodded.  “It’s why you love me!”

“You don’t know how right you are.”

The two shared a few more kisses sitting on the grass, engrossed in their own little world, a bubble of their love, far away from the struggles and the strife of everyday life.  When they were together, everything just melted together.  Neither one knew how to be sad in the other’s presence.  Being together was just comforting and felt to right and warm and safe, and Mordred knew that someday soon he was gonna marry that girl, or he’d spend the rest of his life kicking himself for letting the best part of him go.

Mordred rose from the grass first with a small groan of effort and then helped Lilly up, twining their fingers together as he undid the lock on his wooden fence and they walked down the street to Lilly’s house.  They entered her house of the smell of fresh bread dough and the sound of Morrissey on the radio.  They heard the laughter of Merlin and Arthur coming from the kitchen and followed the sound of it.

“Hey,” Lilly said, leaning against the island counter.  “Learning how to make bread?”

“And failing miserably, I might add,” Arthur answered.  “I can’t cook for shite.  Your brother keeps messing me up.”

Merlin scoffed.  “It’s not my fault you’re so bloody bad at baking!  You burn everything!”

“I do not!  I burnt that apple pie we made for Gwaine once, and it was your fault for distracting me!”

Mordred and Lilly laughed at her brothers.  She didn’t think those two would ever change.  “Wanna take a break and go get frozen yoghurt with Mordred and I?”

“Oh boy,” Arthur mumbled under his breath while Merlin proceeded to groan.

“I’ve been craving the blueberry tart yoghurt all week!”

“Yes, and he won’t shut up about it!”

Merlin was bouncing excitedly on his heels now and clasping his hands together, pleading with his husband for them to go out.  “I’ll stop talking about it if you let me have some!”

“Why can’t you Emrys children be normal and eat ice cream like everyone else?”

“Because ice cream is boring!” Merlin pouted.  “And I’m lactose intolerant.”

Arthur rolled his eyes.  “Fine.  We’ll go get frozen yoghurt.  But I’m driving us there.  None of this taking the bus nonsense.”

Merlin and Lilly exchanged looks.  Both Arthur and Mordred thought they were crazy for not wanting to drive places, and they both thought it was crazy to let anyone allow them behind the wheel of a car.  The first thing Arthur did when they arrived fresh off the plane from London was rent a car, which he spent two hours on the way home cursing about ‘bloody American cars with their steering wheels and opposite sides of the road!’  He’d rented a nice red convertible that was fun to ride in with the top down, the breeze blowing through their hair, but neither Emrys kid felt the need to ever learn how to drive a car.  Lilly much preferred not to think about it.

She and Mordred got into the back of the convertible and Merlin took shotgun.  Arthur peeled out of the driveway and took the shortest route to the frozen yoghurt place, parking right in front of the store.  Merlin bee lined straight for the blueberry tart yoghurt while Arthur got just plain vanilla and loaded it up with tons of sweets on top to make up for the flavour.  Mordred got his usual chocolate with tons of chocolate toppings—a chocolate overdose, he liked to call it—while Lilly got strawberry yoghurt topped with pretzels for an added sweetness and lots of chocolate chips and fresh strawberries.  They were in this seasons and she ate them by the dozen sometimes, dipped in Nutella, which Mordred thought she was crazy for doing until she forced him to try it too.  They found a booth in the back of the shop and sat together, spooning yoghurt into their mouths in comfortable silence.

“So,” Merlin said after clearing his throat, “You guys are starting your senior year soon.”

Lilly groaned.  “Ugh, Merlin, don’t remind me.”

“Why?  I thought you liked school.”

“I like the friend aspect of it, but I want to learn on my own.  I wanna travel and watch sunsets and snow storms and takes lots of photos and try new foods and paint a lot.”

“Yeah, that does sound like you.  What about you, Mordred?  What are you planning to do after school?”

Mordred shrugged his shoulders.  “I thought about visiting family in Wales for a bit, but I don’t have a plan beyond that.  I think I’d like to travel too, take in inspiration.”

“Ooh, you could play some of your songs on street corners!” Lillian said excitedly.

“You write music?” Merlin asked.

Mordred turned scarlet and rubbed at the back of his neck.  “Just a bit.  I’ve been playing guitar since I was little and just recently started putting lyrics along with my melodies.  They’re nothing special.”

“Hey,” Lillian said softly.  “They’re beautiful, Mordred.  And besides, if no one else likes them, at least you know you have one fan.”

“Unless you’re lying to me.”

“Oh honey, please.  You can see right through me.  I wouldn’t lie to you like that.”

The two seemed to be sharing some private moment Arthur and Merlin didn’t quite understand, but Arthur whistled low under his breath and broke the moment up.  “Wow, you two are quite the nauseating couple, aren’t you?”

“Mmm, now you know how I feel watching the two of you being all lovey dovey years before I even met Mordred.”

“Ew, please tell me we’re not that bad.  We aren’t that bad, right, Merlin?”

Merlin refused to look his husband in the eye and put a spoonful of yoghurt in his mouth instead of answering.

Arthur narrowed his eyes at the man.  “It’s all your fault.  I didn’t do PDA before you insisted on it.”

Merlin smiled at him innocently and Arthur rolled his eyes, already forgiven the other man.  “Just remember I called your love from day one, Lilly, and you refused to accept it for the longest time.”

“I…okay, maybe I did.  So what?”

“Nothing.  Just glad to see you happy.”

“I’m always happy,” she informed him.

“We know,” they all chorused and her laughter was like bells as they all finished their frozen yoghurt and Arthur drove them back home.  The older couple went back to their bread making session and Lilly and Mordred settled in on her couch to watch _Love Actually_ , which ended up with Lilly falling asleep in Mordred’s arms and being woken up hours later by his soft voice telling her his dad phoned and he had to go.  She kissed him goodbye and they both told the other they loved them and Mordred exited the front door, Lilly still happily in love.  She grabbed a piece of bread sitting on the island counter and chewed it thoughtfully, humming a Beatles song as she ascended the stairs to her bedroom and doodled ‘Mrs Lillian Mikaelson’ all over her notebook like she was in middle school again.  She had it bad—so in love that it ached inside of her chest almost constantly, burned inside of her with a fiery that was never quelled.  She was so in love with that boy and didn’t ever want to let him go.

 

Lilly woke up with a choking gasp, too completely overwhelmed by the dream she was having of her and Mordred their first summer together.  After that summer Arthur and Merlin went back to London, where they both got a job on a television show together while she and Mordred finished out their senior year.  He wrote her lots of songs and she painted him lots of paintings and gave him a notebook full of her sketches for his birthday.  They were in bliss together and couldn’t seem to find a way out of the happiness, even if it killed them.

Now Lilly can hardly believe that those dreams were actually memories.  She couldn’t remember what the sunlight felt like on her skin.  She didn’t remember the press of Mordred’s lips on hers.  She couldn’t understand bliss.  She hadn’t painted a single thing since he died.  It would all be about blood and pain, anyway, and no one wanted to see that.

With a slight sob Lilly felt around her bed for the picture of her and Mordred she’d fallen asleep holding.  She found it under her torso, slightly bent, but she folded the photo back and traced all of Mordred’s features with her fingertips, like she’d done so many times since he’d died.

“49 days,” she whispered to the man in the picture.  “And you promised you’d never leave me.  You lied.”

She tore the photo of them in half, one piece of her smiling in her sweater and one piece Mordred dressed up as the Doctor.  Then she put both pieces in the drawer beside her bed, banged it shut, and tried to stop the pounding of her grief from her mind with more restless sleep.  After all, what else was she good for anymore?


	3. Day 5 / January 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't think anyone is reading this and it's been ages since I've updated it, but I figured I would at least post the "chapters" (really, days) that I have until I'm all caught up.

_Day 5_

Lilly looked at herself in the mirror. She put a black headband on over her hair and opened the tube of lipstick. Her painted her lips red, so so red. Like blood. Everything in her mind turned to red as she remembered Mordred, dead, never coming back. It was all over.

She sniffed and closed the tube, looked down at the black she was wearing. So much black. She hated wearing black. She didn’t think she’d even owned a single black thing before having to go to her father’s funeral when she was a kid. She’d worn a black blouse with a pleated skirt, black stockings, and ballet flats. Now she was wearing a dress. One of the dresses Mordred has bought her. It made her chest ache.

She slipped on her shoes and shakily grabbed her purse as Hunith knocked softly on her door. “Lilly?” she asked in an uncertain tone.  “We’ve got to get going to the church now.  Are you ready?”

Lilly nodded but didn’t say anything.  She hadn’t said much the past few days.  She had been so hopeful, so optimistic in the hospital that Mordred would be okay, that he’d made it out alive, that the surgery would work and he would be coming home and things would be happy again.  She hadn’t foreseen him flatlining, for leaving her in this world.  For never making it home.  She didn’t know what to think about it, so she kept her mouth shut.

Hunith placed a hand on the small of her daughter’s back and led her out the door into their small Honda where Merlin and Arthur were waiting.  As soon as they’d heard about Mordred in the hospital they took the first flight out of London to show their support.  Merlin wasn’t quite used to seeing his sister with a lack of passion and it scared him, but he didn’t know what else to do but be there for him.

The 15 minute ride to the church was uncharacteristically silent.  Usually in the car with all of the family members, you’d have everyone talking over each other and laughing.  You could hear Arthur’s guffaw, his posh accent contradicting whatever Merlin was saying.  They would bicker and Hunith would be laughing at the two of them and Lilly would put her two cents in on the topic.  That’s about the time where Mordred would chime in, squeezing Lilly’s hand, and showing his support for her.  But nothing like that was going to happen anymore.  The air in the car seemed dead and stale.  Arthur and Merlin didn’t argue.  Hunith focused on driving.  Lilly looked at the green blur of the trees as they cruised along, feeling the painful absence of Mordred’s hand in hers.  She didn’t know if she could do this.

The white church looked all too quaint and silent.  It looked gloomy to Lilly and she didn’t like it.  There were crowds of people all clad in black at the doors being handed the funeral timeline.  They all went to the front of the pews and gave their condolences to Cerdan, Mordred’s father.  Then they all sat in their pews and talked to one another softly and politely waiting for the funeral to start.  Lilly thought it was all disgusting.  She didn’t want to be there.  She couldn’t be there.  She couldn’t say goodbye to Mordred, not yet.  They got so few years together.  It wasn’t fair.

There was a touch on Lilly’s shoulder and it reminded her she was still in her mother’s car.  She reluctantly got out, refusing to maintain eye contact with anyone and refused to receive the funeral timeline.  As she walked into the church, she noted the music playing.  Instead of that sappy instrumental stuff they played at her father’s funeral, she had handed Cerdan Mordred’s iPod, told him that he’d made a funeral playlist, just in case he ever died he said he wanted them to play his favourite songs.  Cerdan had been extremely accommodating and wonderful planning the funeral since Lilly seemed to be too much in shock to do most of it, like picking out what coffin to bury her husband in, something she could never be too grateful for.  Walking down the aisle she knew people were trying to get her attention, to tell her how sorry for her loss they were.  She offered a small smile to Kara and Alvarr, two of their closest friends, but couldn’t find the words to address them.  When she reached the front aisle, she embraced her father in law wholeheartedly, not wanting to let go.  He reminded her so much of Mordred, and it felt like coming home.

Just as the minister took the podium and the music died down, Cerdan squeezed her hand for support on one side of her and she felt her brother’s hand do the same on the other side.  Everyone fell quiet and the funeral had begun.

In all honestly, Lilly didn’t really remember anything the minister was saying about Mordred and his death.  If she listened, if she admitted things, then she would break down, and she didn’t want to break down in front of so many people.  She chose to focus on the pressure of Cerdan’s and Merlin’s hands in hers.  Their grasps felt different than Mordred’s, but if she shut her eyes and pretended she could forget that it wasn’t Mordred holding her hand.

Lilly tuned everything out until the time for eulogies was upon them, where whoever wanted to speak about Mordred could approach the podium and say something about him.  Cerdan stood up first, brushing off his jacket suit, and stood at the podium, adjusted the microphone to his height.  He cleared his throat before speaking.

“Mordred, as a kid, was very different from the Mordred in later years.  When he lost his mother, he became a serious kid, very quiet.  He wouldn’t talk a lot, but he started spending his time doing other things, like writing.  He took up guitar lessons.  He started skateboarding.  I think, through those things, he started healing from his mother’s death, until Mordred wasn’t the silent little kid anymore but a strong teenager, laughing and speaking softly about optimistic things, about focusing on all the wonderful days he had spent with his mother instead of all those months he spent helping nurse her back to health before the cancer stole her from us.

“When I told him about my division change, that we were moving to America instead of staying with family in Wales, to say he wasn’t happy about the change was a bit of an understatement.  For a while he was a wee bit mad at me, but we made it work.  When we started packing up the house, Mordred started to come around a bit.  And not long after we moved here, he came in the house, yammering on about some girl he met in the neighbourhood.

“’Da,’ he said, ‘I met someone.’  He kept telling me, ‘I think she’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met, dad.’  And throughout all these years, his wife Lilly has been his rock, a bright point in my son’s life.  Without her, he wouldn’t be half the person he was.  He was happy, always so happy and a blessing to everyone who met him.  And it is with a heavy heart that I stand here today, having the sunshine taken away from us.  Mordred was and will always be well loved by everyone in this room and I am grateful for the years I spent with my son.”

There were some sniffles in the church and polite clapping as Cerdan stepped off the podium and many other people came up, one by one, recounting the tales of how they met Mordred or the many great adventures they’d had or the times he’d bailed them out, etc.  Lilly tried to pay attention to all of them, but she couldn’t.  There was such a sharp pain in her side and in her heart and she couldn’t.  All these people kept using the past tense.  Mordred _was,_ Mordred _had_ , and she couldn’t handle that.  She didn’t want to.

After everyone who was going to say anything came up, Lilly shakily sighed, knowing people were going to expect his wife to come up and say something.  She stood up on legs that felt like Jello and approached the podium.  She had written out her entire speech, looked over it enough times to know what to say, but standing here in front of all these people, she couldn’t seem to find the words.  They all stared at her expectantly, with sorrow etched on their faces, and she couldn’t breathe.  The pain in her side deepened.

“I—I can’t,” she gasped out.  “I’m sorry.”  Lilly worked to control her breathing, to get air in her lungs, but she couldn’t.  The pain worsened and she was seeing white, her head felt like it was made of air.  She didn’t feel anything as she collapsed on the ground in front of the podium, because when she closed her eyes, she saw Mordred in shining chainmail.  She saw the one person she wanted to see.

 

_January 6_

Lilly laughed harder than she had in a long time as Mordred came out of the bedroom wearing plastic chainmail spray painted silver.  He had armour on over it and a fake sword held together by a leather belt.  He looked so… _medieval,_ and it made Lilly giggle at how ridiculous he looked and how comfortable he looked in that period of clothing.

“Wow, being a knight suits you, Sir Mordred.”  She stifled another laugh as he circled his arms around her waist and pulled her in for a gentle kiss.

“Of course, my Lady.”

“You forget, I’m not a Lady anymore.  I’m a High Priestess of the Old Religion.  And you are a Druid boy.”

Mordred laughed at that.  “Yes of course, _Lady_ Morgana.  We shall use our magic to destroy Arthur Pendragon’s kingdom in Camelot.”

“You are getting all into this thing, aren’t you?”

Mordred shrugged.  “I didn’t think I would be.  I mean, me, the kid who skates around and writes sappy love songs, being interested in period wear?  But ever since Leon dragged me to that stupid medieval festival and the LARPing thing you took photos at the other day, I don’t know...I guess it’s fascinating to me.”

“Hmm,” Lilly hummed.  “I would’ve pegged you for a fan the moment we met growing up in Wales.  I mean, didn’t Arthur supposedly die in Wales or something?  I thought every kid in the UK like grew up learning about Arthurian legend.  Isn’t he like their British hero or something?”

“Kind of.  But as a kid I was always bothered by the fact I had the same name as the boy who killed the Once and Future King.  I mean, doesn’t that weird you out how many people we know have the same names as the ones in Arthurian legend?  Your brother Merlin, his husband Arthur, his sister Morgana, their father Uther, their friend Gwaine, me, Gwen?  I mean, all we need is a Lancelot and a Nimueh and a Morgause and we’ve pretty much got all the important people under one roof.”

“You’re forgetting his name in Arthurian legend is actually Gawain, not Gwaine.  And her name was Morgan le Fay, not Morgana.  And yeah, it’s a little weird we all kind of have the same names.  But there wasn’t a Lillian in Arthurian legend anywhere.  Not that I know of.”

“Yeah, I guess.  Maybe we’re like reincarnations, these are like our past lives or something.  I mean, anything’s possible, right?”

“Sure, babe.  Whatever you say.  But you’re kind of grossing me out because Mordred was the son of Arthur and Morgause and that’s a little freaky to think of my fiancé being the son of my brother’s husband.”  Lilly shuddered and wrinkled her nose at the thought.

Mordred thought about that for a second, too.  “Okay, yeah, that’s definitely creepy.  Sorry I made you dress up as Morgan for Halloween.”

“Mordred, don’t be sorry. This is fun!  Now I can go around pretending I can do all powerful magic and spout a bunch of random Latin words at people and let them freak out.”  She giggled.  “I’m glad you suggested this.”

Mordred nodded and glanced at the clock on the microwave.  “Oh, we gotta get going to Leon’s party or we’re gonna be late.  Kara’s gonna kill us if we’re late.”

Lilly groaned.  “Yeah, I know.  Why does she even want to be the third wheel tonight anyway?  I mean, she totally just should have accepted the date with Alvarr.  Even if they didn’t end up dating, she probably would have had more fun than hanging around with us.”

“I don’t know about you, but I plan on getting pissed tonight.  Leon said his bartender friend Freya was taking care of all the booze tonight, which means I can actually get some decently mixed drinks without having to pay for it.”

Lilly shook her head.  “Fine.  But I’m not carrying you inside the house again like last time.  And we’re taking a cab home.  You can pick up your car from Leon’s house when you’ve recovered from your post drinking hangover.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mordred saluted.  “Safety first.”

“Absolutely.  Can’t have you getting into a car crash and dying on me.  Morgana is nothing without her spy Mordred.”

They exited their house and locked the door and drove to Leon’s house.  The party was already in full swing when they got there, people chattering over Leon’s mix of standard 80s songs and eating off of paper plates.  There were champagne flutes in many people’s hands and cocktail glasses in lots of others.  They were all dressed as something unique and different and it sent a thrill through Lilly.  She wanted to take a snapshot of this moment in her mind and paint it for later.  Such diverse lavish costumes were like points of light and wonder for her.  She enjoyed seeing people getting so enthusiastic and all taking their own creative spin of their costumes.  It made her night light up.

She and Mordred spent the entire night laughing with friends.  They were embracing and screaming and some drunken funny moments.  They were in their element and happy as any couple could be.  Lilly kept getting dragged away from Mordred by her girlfriends squealing in anticipation over seeing her new engagement ring.  They were getting congratulated left and right and asked when their wedding was going to be.  Lilly drank a glass of white wine and a couple glasses of red and was forced into doing a shot of cake flavoured vodka with Kara, which she coughed after as it burned going down.

It was a little past 3:30 in the morning when she and Mordred finally made it back to their house.  She was supporting most of Mordred’s weight as she shifted him in her arms to unlock their front door.  He was drunkenly telling her how beautiful she was and how he couldn’t wait to marry her and how meeting her had been the best thing that had ever happened to him.  He kept calling her cariad and it made Lilly want to smile, if he didn’t sound so ridiculously pissed out of his mind.

“Come on, let’s get you into bed,” she said and helped him through the front door.  She helped him out of his armour and chainmail, then brushed her teeth and put on a clean pair of pyjamas before getting into bed next to Mordred, who was already snug under the covers.

He breathed heavily out of his mouth and Lilly cringed at the smell of whisky on his breath.  “I love you, Lilly, you know that?” he slurred, talking to loud for their silent house.

“Shhh!” she whispered and then laughed.  “Yes, of course I do.”

“I love you to the moon and back,” he said.

“So do I, Mordred.  Now go to sleep, okay?”

“I don’t wanna sleep.  Not even tired.  Jus’ wanna look at your face.”

Lilly rolled her eyes but was flattered by how sweet he was being, even while drunk.  “If you don’t go to sleep I won’t make you your favourite hangover remedy.”

Mordred pouted.  “Fine.”  He turned his back to her and curled up further under the covers.  “Night, cariad.”

“Night, Mordred.”

She fell asleep, mind still a little buzzed, glad to know she has someone who understood just how deep and beautiful love could be when you found it with the right person.

 

When Lilly slowly began to regain consciousness, the first the she registered was the sound of beeping, like hospital monitors.  She’s become very familiar with the sound of it since Mordred had been in the hospital.  He had been hooked up to machines and IVs left and right and one never really got the incessant sound of a heart monitor out of their mind.  The first thing she thought, after recognising what the sound was, that perhaps Mordred’s death had just been a dream: a cruel, unusually realistic dream.  She’d fallen asleep by his bedside like she’d done so many times before and had dreamt up her worst fears in her mind.  She dreamt that Mordred had died hours after coming back from surgery, that he was gone and had left her alone.  She dreamt of the shocking moments afterwards, the days that stretched on and on with no relief in sight.  She dreamt of the funeral, the funeral where she’d fainted while giving her eulogy speech…

And then her mind disappointed her.  Of course it wasn’t a dream.  Mordred was dead.  She knew this with an awful certainty now.  There had been a sharp pain and she hadn’t been able to catch her breath and she had fainted at his funeral in front of everyone mourning the death of her husband.  She had dreamt of that dress up party just a few short days after they had gotten engaged where they had pretended to be characters from Arthurian legend.  She still had photos from that night sitting in a shoebox in her closet.  It was a good night and she needed good memories right now, because she was pretty sure someone had taken her to the hospital after she fainted.  Mordred was dead and she might as well face whatever reality she was about to face when she opened her eyes from her hospital bed.

When she did open her eyes, she was disappointed to learn she had not been wrong, that she really was lying down in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines.  Her mother was right beside her bed while Merlin and Arthur were sitting a little farther back, knees grazing against each other and huddled close, whispering probably so she couldn’t hear.

She licked her dry lips and cleared her throat and croaked out, “What happened?”

Hunith sighed.  “Oh, sweetie, you fainted at Mordred’s funeral.  We were worried about you!”

She nodded.  Her mother would never have brought her to a hospital for the rest of her life if she didn’t have to.  Five days ago Mordred had died here, in this very hospital, probably in a room not too far from the one she was in right now.  Lilly looked at Merlin and Arthur, still in their suits from the funeral, looking at her with sad and guilty expressions on their faces.  “What’s going on?” she asked.

Hunith looked back at the boys, then turned back to Lilly, her lip caught between her two front teeth.  “Well, there was some…blood when you fainted back at the funeral, and we wanted to make sure everything was okay and that the baby was healthy…”  Hunith trailed off, looking back at the boys again.  She didn’t know how to put her emotions into words.

“And?” Lilly asked.

“Look, maybe you should wait for the doctor,” Merlin said.

“No, I wanna know now.  What about the baby?”

No one answered her.

“Mom?  Merlin?”  She glared at both of them but they were staring at their hands, unable to say anything further.  “Arthur?” she implored.

Arthur inhaled shakily and looked at his sister in law.  Merlin was going to kill him for saying something, but Lilly needed to hear the news from someone she knew, someone who cared about her.  He shook his head.  “You lost the baby, Lill.”

Lilly laughed maniacally, bordering on hysterics.  “No, you can’t tell me I lost the baby.  Mordred and I had been trying for so long.”  Her voice broke on the last word.  They’d been trying and trying and nothing was happening and it was putting a wrench in their relationship, because she wanted a baby _so bad_ and Mordred felt bad that he couldn’t do anything to help and then she finally found out she was pregnant and she thought everything was gonna be okay.  She and Mordred were good again.  They were happy.  They were planning baby names and deciding on how to raise it and then Mordred went and got himself killed.  And maybe she couldn’t process his death right now because he wasn’t truly gone.  She wasn’t ready to say goodbye because she still had a piece of him living inside her and as long as her child was alive she would never have to say goodbye to Mordred.  And in less than a week she lost her husband and her baby and she was so utterly alone and without any hope and she couldn’t handle that anymore.  She needed Mordred there to remind her things were going to be okay, to tell her to focus on the positive.  But what was positive about the situation she was in?

Her family traded worried looks at Lilly, who had placed both her hands on her stomach.  She peeled back her hospital gown and looked at her stomach.  She was just starting to get a baby bump.  You couldn’t tell her that a symbol of her and Mordred’s love had been growing inside her just a few short hours ago and now it was dead and gone and nothing would ever be the same.

Her doctor came in then, followed by her geriatric nurse.  The nurse, Alice, took up the chart at the foot of her bed and handed it to Dr Gaius, who looked over the pages before turning to Lilly with a soft smile on his face.  “How are you feeling today, Lilly?” he asked.

“Don’t fucking patronise me,” she spat out, hands still on her belly.  “I lost my husband five days ago and now you’re telling me I had a fucking miscarriage?”

Dr Gaius sighed.  “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, Lilly.  I know how hard things must be on you right now.”

“It’s my fault, right?” she said.  “My fault my husband died?  My fault that I killed our child?”

“You didn’t kill anyone,” he said soothingly, placing his hand on hers and taking them off her stomach.  “Having a miscarriage is a perfectly normal thing to happen.  You and your husband had been trying for a very long time and the risks of having this baby were very high from the beginning.”

Lilly shook her head.  “It’s not fair,” she mumbled.

“No, it’s not,” he told her.  “But unfortunately the world doesn’t care what’s fair and what’s not.  Now we’ve run lots of tests on you since you fainted and you are in excellent health, despite showing a bit of exhaustion, which is understandable.  You should be able to go home in a few hours after we get all his paperwork finish.”

“Great, thanks,” Lilly said monotonously.  Dr Gaius put her chart back where he’d gotten it.  Hunith stepped out of the room to talk to Dr Gaius and Alice about some things, leaving Lilly there to curl on her side and forget everything but shutting her eyes and wishing none of this was ever happening.

Because this _couldn’t_ be happening to her.  She was used to weathering the storms instead of shutting down like this.  She didn’t know what to do anymore now that everything was falling apart.  Things had been really tense with Mordred when she couldn’t get pregnant.  She got sad a lot and frustrated and mad at herself and sometimes she took it out on him but he was always so strong and so understanding and he had made everything okay.  And now he was gone.  She wasn’t going to be able to run her fingers through his unruly curls anymore.  She wasn’t going to be able to look into his blue eyes, to laugh at the things he says, to watch the new episodes of _Doctor Who_ with him, to travel, to show him her paintings, to take photos of him and print them out everywhere, to listen to him play the guitar and hum along with it.  She wasn’t going to get any more chances to do anything with him ever again.  He was just gone and the one thing that kept her from breaking down completely was this human being inside of her that she was choosing to love with all of her heart.

And now it too had been selfishly been taken away from her and she found she didn’t have much to live for anymore.  Two people she found she cared the most about had died and she blamed herself.  She was full of guilt and suffering and no one else could truly understand.  When her father died it had been of his own issues and not her mother’s fault.  Arthur’s father had died through a terrible heart attack, which wasn’t his fault.  Cancer had taken Mordred’s mother—but that didn’t matter anymore, because Mordred was dead.

Lilly squeezed her eyes shut even tighter and focused on her deep breaths.  She heard Merlin and Arthur muttering to themselves from where they sat but she couldn’t make out anything they were saying, and frankly she didn’t really care to.  She was quite beyond caring about anything at this point.  There wasn’t anything left to live for now that the two part of herself had just been ripped away without warning.

A door quietly opened up and then shut.  There was some shuffling of fabric in the room and she felt someone by her bedside.  “Lilly?” the voice asked, and she recognised it as Arthur’s at once.  No one else has such a stupidly posh accent like his.  She used to enjoy making fun of him for it.  She had secretly loved it, though, but wondered how he had retained his posh accent while living in Derby and then moving to Florida as a kid and spending so many years there.  Arthur had always shrugged his shoulders when she asked and said perhaps it was all the British telly he was used to watching.  Lilly usually grumbled at that and said if British TV was what gave him a British accent she should be having one by now, but she never really did a good accent.  Now Lilly could really care less about Arthur and his accent.  She would prefer not hear it if at all possible.

“Look, I uh, know you probably don’t want anyone to talk to you right now, but I think I should share something with you.  This is probably the quite opposite of my mother’s story, but I think I should tell you it anyway.  I know you know my father and how he died, but I’ve never really opened up about my mother.  I know I told you that I never knew her, that she was gone before I was old enough to know her, and that’s true.  But what I didn’t tell you is that she died giving birth to me.

“See, my mum and dad had a similar situation with you and Mordred: they had a lot of trouble conceiving.  My dad was desperate for a child and my mum couldn’t conceive so he ended up having an affair and producing Morgana, but that’s an entirely different story.  Point is, afterwards he felt really bad and he told my mum, who was mad at him, but forgave him, and they agreed to keep trying.  I think they both thought if they had a kid then the problems they had been having would go away and things would be better, which is utter bullshite considering how much of a fucking wanker my father is.  Be glad you never met him, Lill.  He kicked me out when I told him I was gay and tried to scare off every guy I ever dated.  Thank God your brother isn’t so easily scared away or my father would have seen to it that I remained a bachelor for the rest of my life.

“Shit.  Sorry, I’m getting off topic.  The point is, I think my parents tried every single method available at the time in order to have a kid and then this one doctor, Nimueh, made it possible for them.  My dad told me it was the best day of my mother’s life when she found out she was pregnant with me.

“I’ve been told that the pregnancy was really hard on my mum.  She was on bedrest most of her pregnancy in order to stop any complications like a miscarriage or brain damage or anything like that.  And when she had me, it took so much out of her body that the exhaustion and weakness mixed with the blood loss stopped her heart and she died before ever really getting to hold me.  I don’t know if she ever even saw me.  All I know is that she loved me very much.

“But growing up, I always felt like it was my fault she died.  I mean, she would be alive if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with me.  My birth is what killed her.  My father always kept me at a cold distance and I could see something in his face every time I mentioned my mum, like he blamed me for his death too, and that’s why he hated me.  I’ve always felt this guilt over her passing, something I couldn’t fix, and I can’t help but wonder if you’re feeling the same.  Even though logically I know there’s nothing I could have done, I still have that nagging feeling inside me like I’ll always be the reason she never got to live a full live.

“People tell me all the time that before my mother died, my father was a completely different person.  He was warm and gentle and kind to everyone.  He laughed a lot and had tons of fun was loved his family dearly.  And that was my mother’s influence apparently, because the man I knew after her death was the exact opposite.  I don’t think he ever got over her death, and over time it turned him into this bitter, raging creature that no one could recognise.  He let his anguish and anger consume him, eat him alive, and it changed him.  I don’t want the same thing to happen to you, Lilly.  So please, promise me, that you won’t let Mordred’s death eat you alive.  Please promise me you’ll give up some of your pride and accept help when it’s being offered to you.  We only want the best things for you in the future, but we can’t help you unless you let us. 

“I love you.  You’re the best little sister in the entire world and I’m so grateful for everything you’ve ever done for me.  You spread sunshine and love to everyone you meet, and we just want to be able to give that back to you when you need it the most.  Will you promise me you won’t give up, that you’ll keep trying?  Even without Mordred?”

Lilly soaked in everything Arthur was telling her.  She gripped her hospital gown in her fist, bunching the fabric up as he spoke further, getting to the true point of the story.  His words didn’t make her want to fight, because what was worth fighting without Mordred?  But it did make her intensely guilty for letting her family down, so what she did was nod to him, whisper “I promise,” and pretend for a few more hours before she went home that things would get better.  She knew they wouldn’t, not at this rate, but faking it for those who loved her was all that she could manage to do at that point.  She was shattered and despite all Arthur had said, there was no more hope, and no way for anyone to ever help her.  It was all a lie.

5 days and nothing was the same.


	4. Day 81 / November 9

_Day 81_

Time didn’t seem real for Lilly anymore.  She couldn’t move.  She couldn’t think anymore.  Her mother had to struggle with her every day.  Dimly in the back of Lilly’s mind she knew her mother would get her up every day, help her take a shower, help her dress, attempt to feed her, try and get her to take a walk or to play a record or put on a show she used to love.  But everything was so empty for Lillian.  The only time she ever felt anything was when she had therapy session with Morgana.

Lilly was convinced Morgana was evil.  She wanted to take all the thoughts and feelings inside her head and bring it to life.  She wanted to extract her memories and make her forget about Mordred.  Make her forget about the baby she lost.  She wanted to dredge up the things Lilly had been trying so hard to force down and make her whole again.  And that was the absolute last thing that Lilly wanted.  She didn’t want to talk about her losses.  She just wanted to forget.  She wanted to stop the gaping hole inside of her, not make it bigger by talking endlessly about stupid shit that didn’t matter anymore.  She hated therapy sessions and she hated Morgana even more.  And she hated her mom for making her get up and have these sessions.

Morgana was sitting across from her now, trying to push and push and gain a reaction out of Lilly.  “Are you ready to talk about how you feel?  How losing Mordred has affected you?  How having a miscarriage has affected you?”

Lilly narrowed her eyes at Morgana.  “How do you think it’s affected me?” she spat.

Morgana shrugged.  “I don’t know.  That’s why I need you to tell me.”

Lilly shook her head.  “I don’t have an answer.  And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Morgana sighed.  “Okay.  What do you want to talk about, then?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, you have to talk about something.”

Lilly crossed her arms over her chest.  She was never defiant before this.  She didn’t know why she was being like this now.  She was always so happy go lucky, never really making waves.  She didn’t know what was making her rebellious now, but she absolutely refused to talk about Mordred’s death.  She still didn’t want to deal with the fact she wasn’t going to grow old with him.  Perhaps she never would be.

“Lilly, I’m going to ask you to do something and I want you to take this seriously.  Sometimes people tend to focus on the good moments, the good aspects of a relationship or a memory in order to help them deal with the negative aspects of something.  Do you think you can try and talk to me about all the good days you had while Mordred was alive?  Maybe talk about a random lazy day you two had, or your wedding day or something.  Do you think you can start talking about Mordred with the good days?  Focus on that?  Like you never left that moment.”

Lilly thought about that.  That was her and Mordred’s thing: they always wanted to look on the bright side of things and not dwell on the negative.  That was the key to happiness.  If they forgot about all the bad in the world everything was sunshine and roses and good things came to them.  Maybe if she remembered Mordred in a happy light, refuse to talk about the day where all the goodness was ripped away from her, force her mind to go into that golden bubble of happiness that used to surround her, then the rest will follow and she’ll be okay again.

“Okay,” she agreed.  She didn’t know how to start talking about Mordred. She hadn’t uttered his name since everything bad had happened.  It was hard to speak about him, to think about him without remembering the end.  But she could always try, maybe, if Morgana was there to support her.

“Good,” Morgana said nodding.  “Is there a particular day you want to start with?  The happiest day of your life maybe?”

Lilly closed her eyes tight, tried to capture that moment in her mind and play it out like a scene from a movie.  “Can I tell you about the day he proposed to me?” she asked.

“I would be delighted.”

“Okay.”  Lilly took a breath.  “It all started out like this…”

 

_November 9_

Lilly woke up to the sun shining in her eyes and she grumbled, taking the pillow from under her head and covering her eyes with it.  Her head was _killing_ her.  There was like a jackhammer in her skull, just drilling away.  And the thing was it wasn’t a hangover or anything; she was just tired and overworked and missing Mordred like crazy.  She’d been up almost a full 72 hours putting the finishing touches on her paintings so they would be done in time for her debut at the art exhibit.  In between painting she was doing tours at the museum, walking around and explaining the art to clueless people, answering their questions patiently.  Mordred was busy at rehearsals all day, working on a cd with his band members.  They had finally gotten signed and her working on material for recording during studio time in a few weeks.  Mordred was tired but excited when he came home every night, ranting on about some new lyrics he and Leon had come up with or how Kara was slaying it on bass that night.

It was rare that Lilly was in a slump.  But she was just so grumpy and exhausted and didn’t want to be around people anymore.  She missed the happy days she and Mordred had and she wanted them back.  Maybe she was just overworked and needed to take a little of her vacation time, but she couldn’t seem to find the time for it, not when she had so many projects to work on.  She was doing her medieval set, with lots of oranges and reds, with silver chainmail and swords and battle armour, with kings and queens and sorcerers.  She was doing an entire set of paintings based off the Arthurian legends and basing the looks of the characters off her friends with the same name.  Mordred has inspired her that Halloween night when he’d dressed up as his namesake and was slowly trying to convince her they were all reincarnations of the legend brought back to change the world.  She had dug deep into the root of the stories and was inspired to paint, and so she did.

She loved painting more than anything—it was her passion—but her relationship with Mordred was important too, and she felt their careers and personal lives were interfering with their relationship.  They’d both been a little on edge with each other lately.  Neither one of them was on exactly the same page and while it was rare that Lilly felt awkward and didn’t know what to say to her boyfriend, she felt she’d been walking on eggshells around him the past couple of weeks and it was really bothering her.

She wasn’t happy waking up that morning, but with another groan she forced herself out of bed—her empty bed, she didn’t fail to note—and forced her way to the kitchen.  She immediately took the coffee pot and poured water into it.  She took out a fresh new filter and filled it with coffee, the strongest she could get.  She leaned against the counter, still somewhat in a daze, listening to the coffee machine gurgle and spit its song out at her, making her coffee without abandon.

A door opened loudly in the bedroom and footsteps were heard on the linoleum as Mordred entered their modest kitchen, t-shirt half ridden up and in his boxer shorts.  His hair was sticking up five different ways and he was rubbing his slightly red eyes, probably blurry with sleepiness.  Once he looked at Lilly, leaning against the counter next to the coffee maker, in her night shirt exposing her milky thighs and her dark blonde hair slightly staticky and ruffled, looking grumpy as all get out, he smiled at her, grinned in a way he hadn’t with her in a while.

“Hi,” he said in a sleepy voice.

Lilly cleared her throat before she spoke.  “Hey there.”

He walked over to her, circled his arms around her waist and kissed the side of her forehead.  “You look beautiful,” he murmured.

Lilly scoffed.  “Mordred, I just woke up.”

“So?  You’re still the most gorgeous person I’ve ever met, sleepy or not.”

Lilly shook her head at him, but she was grinning shyly.  “Oh, please.  It’s not like I’m irresistibly perfect like you are, with your hair like that.”

Mordred laughed throatily.  “We’re a sight, aren’t we?”

Lilly bit her lip.  “Maybe.”

Mordred turned serious then for a second.  “I really love you, you know that?”

Lilly nodded and looked down at their bodies close together.  “I know you do.  And I love you too.  I’ve just never felt this out of sync with you before and it scares me, Mordred.  I’ve been afraid I’m gonna lose you.”

“You’re not, okay?  Babe, I promise you’re not gonna lose me.  I love you too much to ever let you go.  I’m sorry, okay?”

“I’m sorry, too.”  Lilly sighed and hugged Mordred, her head on his chest.  He caressed her hair.  “Gosh, I love you so much.”

“It’s okay.  It’s okay,” he chanted, the gurgling coffee maker ending its cycle the background music of their moment.

Lilly looked back up at Mordred.  “Let’s not fight like this again, okay?”

“Agreed,” Mordred said, and leaned down to kiss her. 

Lilly pushed lightly on his chest, though.  “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet!” she protested.

“Don’t care,” Mordred said and kissed her, light and sweet, not worried about morning breath.

In another matter of seconds they were pulled apart and Mordred was pulling a mug out of a cabinet and handing it to Lilly, who poured a generous amount of coffee into it.  “I’m making pancakes if you want any,” Mordred told her, leaning down to grab a pot out of a cabinet and entered their pantry for the pancake mix.

Lilly sat at the kitchen table sipping her morning coffee and laughing with Mordred like she hadn’t in years.  Dean Martin was playing softly in the background when Mordred turned the cd on and Lilly breathed a content sigh, happy that she was back in her groove and things were good.

After Mordred had finished making the pancakes and served them on plates, smothered in butter and the pure maple syrup they’d gotten on their last trip to Canada, Lilly sighed.  “I’ve missed this,” she admitted to him.

He smiled at her and agreed.  They ate in relative silence, revelling in Dean Martin, before cleaning their plates and putting the dishes in the dishwasher.

“Let’s have a lie in,” Mordred told Lilly.  “We can sit around and watch old episode of _Doctor Who_ or Hitchcock movies, curled up under the covers with tea and scented candles and just be together.  I think we deserve it.”

“Okay,” Lilly agreed with a smile.  “Which Doctor?”

“You know why answer is always gonna be Pertwee.”

“We watched Pertwee a few months ago.  How about Colin Baker?”

“Mmmm Peter Davison?”

Lilly narrowed her eyes.  “Sylvester McCoy.”

“William Hartnell.”

“Will you let me rant about Susan?”

Mordred laughed.  “No.”

“Then not Hartnell.  How about we watch all the Pertwee serials with Sarah Jane?  I miss her.”

“Deal.”

Lilly skipped to their bedroom and picked the DVDs off their shelf and plucked one of her favourite serials out and put it in the DVD player.  Mordred put his arms around her and pulled her towards the bed, making her squeal, and they got all under the covers and snuggled together and watched the serial.

By the end of Lilly’s favourite serial she gave a contented sigh.  The theme song started playing with the credits and she snuggled into Mordred’s embrace.  “See, that’s the perfect ending, you know?  Just…they don’t make them like that anymore.  Gosh it’s been a long time since I’ve watched any of these.  I’m kind of in the mood to watch Ace smash a Dalek with a baseball bat.  What about you?”

She looked at Mordred, who was gazing at her with an expression she couldn’t read.  “What?” she asked him.  “Why are you stating at me like that?”

He smirked at Lilly.  “Marry me,” he breathed.

Lilly gawked at him.  “What?”

“I’m serious.  Marry me.  I want to wake up married to you, to listen to you being perfect and beautiful talking about how much you love _Doctor Who_.  I want this all with you and I want it forever.”

Lilly let out an incredulous laugh and sat up on the bed crosslegged, staring at Mordred now.  “But…”

“I wasn’t planning on asking like this.  I was gonna set up some elaborate date and make it a perfect moment for you…but this is the perfect moment.  You are the most breathtaking thing I have ever seen right now and it all feels so right.  I’ve never been so in love and I just want to share it all with you.  If you want.”

Lilly just stared at a moment, absorbing everything it all in.  “Yes!” she blurted.  “Oh my gosh, yes, I will marry you!  Oh my GOD!”  She laughed in pure happiness again and kissed Mordred like her life depended on it, deep and long and loving.  “Wow.  We’re engaged!” she squealed.

He grinned back at her.  “I’ll give you your ring later if you want.  I don’t know about you, but I’m rather fond of watching Ace smash a Dalek.”

“Sounds good to me,” she laughed, and after putting in another serial they were wrapped in each other’s arms and enjoying their moments spent together again.  Everything was perfect.

 

When Lilly has out of her trance, done remembering their fights and their bedhead and their _Doctor Who_ marathons, she looked at Morgana, whose expression she couldn’t decipher.

“I remember that day,” she said quietly.  “I remember when you called your brother the next day when he was having brunch with Arthur and I and you told him you were engaged.  I’d never been more happy for you than at that moment.”

“And I didn’t think I could get any happier.  I thought the fighting was over with, that things were going to be okay, that Mordred and I were going to get married and everything was going to be like it used to.”

“And did it?”

Lilly was silent.  She had an extra hole in her heart where it should have been filled with a baby.  She was almost 10 weeks along when Mordred died and the doctors had told her that the stress had been the cause of her baby’s death, that it was her fault both the people she cared the most about were dead.  Okay, they didn’t say that last part, Lilly had added that on herself, but it was overwhelmingly true.  If she hadn’t loved Mordred so much, if she hadn’t been so anxious over his condition, so upset, so out of her mind with grief after the surgery failed, she would be almost five months along now, with a healthy baby and possibly a gender and a name to attach to it.  She would have had something to focus on, something to live for, a reason to get out of bed in the morning, someone to take care of, someone she could fill the Mordred-shaped hole in her heart with.  But she had to go and fuck that up, like everything, and now there was no purpose, no point in living.  Why the fuck was she talking about someone she could never bring back like it was supposed to fix anything?  Everything was irrevocably broken!

“For a while,” she said in a stilted tone and shifted on the couch.  She cleared her throat.  “Look, I don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”

Morgana nodded.  “Okay.  Whenever you’re ready, Lilly, you tell me when.  Perhaps next time we’ll talk about your wedding day?  A day which I was glad to be a part of, by the way.”

There was a ghost of a smile on Lilly’s lips.  Yeah, her wedding had been a really happy day, with everyone she cared about there to support her holy union.  Her smile had been bright and Mordred had been the only thing on her mind, them being officially husband and wife for eternity.  But that was a story for another time, another moment, when she felt like she could discuss it.  She couldn’t do anything more that day, not with her head feeling like lead and her heart stuck in her throat.  Lilly just nodded and Morgana got up from her chair in order to hug her sister in law.

When Morgana left the room and went to the kitchen to converse with Hunith, their voices both low and nursing cups of tea, Lilly went back to her bedroom and got under all the covers, pulling them up tight around her face, to shield her from the world.  She focused on counting her deep breaths.  _One, two, three, four._   It was all too much.  Lilly felt sick with the happy memories, like they didn’t have a place in her life anymore.  She was so used to darkness and death and it was like she wasn’t allowed to have a happy memory anymore, that her life was tainted beyond repair and anything happy couldn’t pass through without dire consequences.  And now she felt physically sick to think about all of this, all this shit that Morgana was dredging up.

Lilly squeezed her eyes tight and tried to focus on breathing again instead of the memories, willing herself not to throw up.  Morgana’s heels clicked on the tile floor.  A door shut.  There was a clang as a mug of tea was being put down on a counter.  A shuffling of feet.  Hesitant knocking on her door.

“Lilly?” her mother asked quietly.

Lilly lifted the covers off her face and shifted in the bed to face the door.  Her mother poked her head in, making sure Lilly was still alive, and then entered, sitting on the foot of her bed.  “How are you feeling, sweetie?”

Lilly shrugged.  “Sick.”

“I’m making tomato basil soup soon.  I know it’s your favourite.”

Lilly sighed deeply.  “I’m not hungry.”

Hunith pursed her lips.  She’d been patient with her daughter.  She had packed up her daughter’s house and sold it when Lilly was unable to do it herself.  All of the stuff that wouldn’t fit in her old room she’d had in high school was in storage.  She worked off shifts and came home and made sure her only daughter was still breathing, scared to death she was going to walk in on Lilly’s cold corpse every time she left her alone.  She took care of her and traded sad and frantic calls with her son and tried to do the best she could and still felt like there was nothing she could do.  But Hunith could only do so much and she was at her limit with her daughter.  There were some things she could allow only for so long.

“Lillian Rose Emrys, if you are going to live in this house you are going to eat every day!  You are going to shower and eat and get dressed and try.  You don’t have to leave the house or listen to music or talk but you have to agree to do the essential things, please!  If you aren’t hungry, humour me.  Eat your soup and stop giving up!  Is this was Mordred would have wanted you to do?  Just shrivel up in a corner and wait for your body to give out because it’s easier than fighting the hurt?  Do you think he would be proud of you for how you’ve reacted to his death?  Lilly, Mordred is dead!  He is gone!  And honey I know it hurts—I went through it when your father died—but you can’t lie down and stop living your life!  The only thing you can do is try and go to therapy until you can get your life back!”

Hunith let out a strangled breath and closed her mouth.  She didn’t mean to unload on her daughter like that, but enough was enough.  She watched the emotions on her daughter’s face, the water that accumulated in her eyes, the trembling of her lip.  She hadn’t meant to hurt her.

“Low fucking blow, Mother,” Lilly said.  “Don’t you ever play that card with me again.  How the fuck would you know how Mordred would feel about this?  Because as you so gracefully put it, he’s dead.  He’s not coming back.  Thank you for that constant reminder.”

Lilly kicked the covers off her and rose from the bed, flung herself into the bathroom and locked the door.  She slid onto the floor by the toilet and heaved, dry heaved because there was nothing in her stomach to purge.  Then she curled up onto the tile, grateful for the coolness under her cheek, and cried until the tears dried on her cheeks and her red eyes couldn’t stay open anymore, her sniffled reduced to silent in and out breathing only produced for the sleeping.


	5. Day 98 / April 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just putting the finishing touches and editing the rest of the chapters, so I should have them out one a week until the story is finished.
> 
> I also apologise for my lack of what it's actually like in Swansea. The characters travel there and do some touristy stuff and I did research, but if I got any details wrong please do let me know. I've never been to Swansea, so I tried to come up with common things people experience and do while they're visiting.

_Day 98_

Lilly woke up with a dry throat and crusted cheeks and padded her way to the bathroom.  She washed her face without looking in the mirror and drank water from the tap before forcing her way down to the kitchen.  She didn’t want to be awake.  She didn’t want to be up, to be forced to eat breakfast, to do really anything, but she had promised her mother.  Her mom was like a hawk, making sure Lilly ate her meals and took care of herself, even if she was still an empty shell inside.  At least she was keeping her body alive.

Hunith was already in the kitchen, humming a song she used to sing to Lilly when she was a kid.  She had to swallow hard to shut out the memories, to stop herself from remembering.  She didn’t want to remember.  When Hunith saw her daughter, barefoot with red eyes, she ordered her to sit at the island.  Lilly did so without a word and waited as her mother made oatmeal and added cinnamon and nutmeg into it for extra taste.  It tasted like cardboard sliding down Lilly’s throat but she ate it all with complaint.  She didn’t want to fight with her mom anymore.  It was easier to shut up and do what she asked than hurt her mom again.

“I’ve gotta go into work soon, kid,” she said to Lilly.  “But Morgana will be here for therapy, same time as usual.”

Lilly nodded.

Hunith cocked her head at her daughter.  “Is therapy helping you any?” she asked.

Lilly shrugged.  “I guess.”

“Do you guys talk about what happened?”  Her voice was soft, careful not to upset.

“No.  Not yet.”

“Oh.  Okay.”

Lilly rose from the island and washed her oatmeal bowl in the sink.

“What are your plans for today?” Hunith asked.

“Nothing to do,” Lilly responded.  Except sleep.

“Well, why don’t you try to paint something?  You used to love painting.  Maybe you should get back to it.”

Lilly’s whole body stiffened.  She imagined herself in front of a canvas, easel and paint brushes by her side.  She would smear crimson across the white canvas, smother it with red and black and dark purple, externalising her internal pain into a disturbing painting.  She imagined painting a ghost Mordred, pale white, purple bruises, twisted evil expression, hellfire burning behind him.  She’d rather not think of those gruesome images.

She wished she could be like Van Gogh and paint pretty sunflowers and eat yellow paint and hope the sunshine would rub off on her and make her happy again, but she couldn’t do it.  She couldn’t even try to be bright and cheery.  She wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Yeah, maybe,” she said to her mother, just to appease her.  Hunith kissed the top of her head and grabbed her keys, telling her daughter goodbye and leaving her alone in an eerily silent house.

Lilly didn’t know what to do next.  She stood against the counter in the kitchen for a few minutes, her mind not really focused on anything, her eyes staring blindly at nothing.  It took her a while before she snapped out of it and made her way back to her bedroom.  She sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the art supplies just sitting there in the corner of her room.  She’d ruined a few of the paintings she was working on when she’d freaked out one day and thrown things around her room in a temper tantrum.  Her mother had silently replaced it and it had been sitting here for a while, untouched and unnoticed by the artist.  Lilly stared at it now, the off-white canvas, the paints in their tubes, waiting for her to pick them up and create her next masterpiece.  Lilly dug deep inside herself and tried to find that will, that passion, she used to have, and couldn’t find it anymore.  She didn’t have a desire to paint anymore.  Everything about her was just useless.

Lilly sighed heavily and looked away from the canvas in the corner and flopped back on her bed, knees up.  She stared at the ceiling, trying to remember the last time she even felt remotely happy since Mordred died.  She didn’t think there’d been a single day when she’d felt anything in the vicinity of happy.  She’d even settle for an okay.  But all she could muster up was memories of sadness, regret, anger, all the dark emotions she used to never feel.  There was a pang in her chest and she looked back on how she used to be when Mordred was alive.  She was always in a good mood.  And if she wasn’t she was still at least pleasant to be around.  She was always humming to some kind of oldies song or painting or taking photos with her Polaroid camera.  She used to smile and laugh and care about the little things.  When was she gonna get that back?  She was sick of these empty emotions.  She just wanted to go back.

Lilly sat there contemplating how to get back in that mind set when there was a knock on the door.  She checked her clock and sighed when she saw it was time for therapy.  She let Morgana in and they went back to her bedroom, where most of their sessions took place.  It made Lilly feel more comfortable that way and it’s not like Morgana _wasn’t_ family or anything.

She smiled at Lilly.  “How’s your day going so far?” she asked.

“Okay, I guess.”

“Yeah?  Just okay?”

Lilly nodded.

“Anything on your mind?  Anything you wanna talk about in today’s session?”

“My mom brought up how I used to paint.”

“Yeah?  Have you painted any lately?”

“No.  Not since…not since everything happened.”

Morgana nodded her head.  “Haven’t felt like it?  No inspiration?”

“Something like that.”

“Did she suggest trying to get back into painting?”

Lilly nodded.

“How do you feel about that?”

Lilly shrugged.  “I don’t know…”  Her eyes trailed back to the blank canvas and unused paints in the corner of her room and tried again to find that passion she had for painting but again couldn’t feel any kind of pull towards it.  “Not ready to go back to it yet.”

“That’s understandable.  You used to paint a lot, huh?  I know you worked at an art museum, but I’ve never actually seen any of your paintings.”

“Oh, I wasn’t that good.  I mean, I was starting a series I was thinking of trying to get into a showcase.  It was something I just liked to do, something to express myself.  But yeah, I guess you could say I started to paint a lot more frequently.”

“How come?”

“I was happy.  I don’t know.  Mordred and I went to Wales for our honeymoon and there was an explosion of beautiful culture for me and it just sparked my interest in painting again.”

“Ah, that’s right!” Morgana exclaimed.  “I forgot you went back to his hometown for your honeymoon.  You guys came back all blissful and happy and wouldn’t tell anyone what was so special about the trip.  I just thought it was all the sex you two were having.”

Lilly blushed.  “Well…there was that too.”

Morgana laughed.  “Do you wanna share any of your adventures with me?”

“Okay,” Lilly said before thinking on the specific details.

 

_April 7_

Mordred made a moaning noise as he stirred awake, twisting the hotel sheets around his naked frame.  He opened his eyes and immediately flung a hand up to ward him against the harsh morning light.

Lilly made a protesting noise.  “Ah, you moved!  You weren’t supposed to move.  You looked so cute the way you were sleeping.”

Mordred grunted.  He looked at Lilly, still shielding his eyes from the sun.  “Were you painting me?” he asked, his voice a little hoarse from sleepiness and being unused.

She shrugged.  “The lighting was good and you looked so serene and…I didn’t really want to forget the moment,” she responded.

Last night had been amazing.  She couldn’t get used to the shiny glint of her metal wedding band, so different from the engagement ring she had had on her finger for so long.  She was married now.  _Married_.  To the one person in her life who meant the most to her.  And she was excited to be on her honeymoon with him, in Swansea.  Mordred wanted to show her around the place he grew up.  He wanted to show her all his hiding places, all the secret nooks and crannies he went to when his mum had been dying and he had been overwhelmed with emotions and had to get out of the house.  He wanted to show her all his hang out stops, the beaches and little shops and stuff his friends had frequented.  And Lillian wanted to know these things about him, to bring herself closer to him.  She wanted to learn the secrets of South Wales.

But last night…I mean, it _was_ her honeymoon.  And so it felt a little different this time, being with Mordred, just them two in a hotel room in Wales, together.  It’s not like they hadn’t slept together before—they’d been living with each other basically ever since they graduated and opted not to go to university—but being married and alone together in such a magical place just made the whole thing seem more real, more passionate, just more.  And she had to paint it in order to never lose the feeling.

“Come back to bed,” Mordred said with a lazy smile on his face.

“I thought you wanted to show me around Swansea today.”  Lillian did a few more brush strokes, capturing the messiness of his hair, the vividness of his blue eyes, the scruff he had from not shaving.  He still took Lillian’s breath away every time she looked at him.

“And I will.  But first…” He patted the sheets next to him.

Lillian laughed.  “Okay, okay.  I’m coming.”

She snuck back into the bed with him and he covered them up with the sheets.  She stared into his eyes, in their little cocoon, wondering how she got to lucky, how she was able to marry the most amazing person on the planet.

“Hello, Mrs. Mikaelson,” Mordred said, biting his lip as he did.  His eyes sparked as the sun filtered through the sheets and played with the shadows on his face.

“I really like the sound of that,” Lilly whispered.

“Me too.”  Mordred leaned in to kiss his new wife, fingers gentle while grasping her chin.  They stayed like that for a while, a fire burning inside of Lilly, bursting with happiness and contentment and love and gratefulness that her life had tuned out so beautifully.  Mordred was, and has always been hers, and she was so lucky to be here with him, kissing him, feeling his skin on her skin, so close to the place where he grew up.  She felt special in that moment.

She pulled back from Mordred’s kiss and he groaned, not wanting to let go of her.  “We have to get a move on if you want to take me around Swansea.  Where are we going anyway?”

Lillian sat up on the bed and pulled the covers off her body.  Mordred got out of bed, pulling a pair of black skinny jeans on as he went.  “Not telling.  You’ll see.”

Lilly pouted for a second.  “Fine.  How am I supposed to know what to wear if you won’t tell me where we’re going?”

Mordred just laughed and threw a shirt at her head. Lilly continued scowling, but got dressed for the day anyway in her favourite pair of cut-off shorts and a bright yellow shirt. They took a bus through Swansea, Mordred’s hand in hers as Lilly couldn’t resist staring out the window at how beautiful South Wales was. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She grew up in _Florida_. It was all white sand beaches and palm trees, and that was beautiful, but it was nothing to the verdant fields and beautiful cliffs and windy beaches with that crunched beneath her sandals.

When they got off the bus, Lilly stared up at the building confused, the wind whipping through her hair. “You’re taking me to the _university_?” she asked.

Mordred smirked. “It’s what’s _inside_ the university. There’s the Egyptian Centre. Tons of beautiful Egyptian artefacts. I know how crazy you get about art and culture. I figured we could spend the better part of the morning gazing at Egyptian history and then we could just walk around Swansea and get some curried chips and just…exist? Is that lame?”

Lilly smiled up at him. “No,” she said softly, squeezing his hand, “It’s perfect.

Mordred’s smile lit up his whole face, his dark blue eyes twinkling with happiness. “Let’s get started then, shall we?”

 

There was something new for them to do every day, but it never felt like their adventures were forced. Mordred took her around Swansea, letting them both get used to his old homestead at their own leisure.

There was one day when the weather was actually decent enough for them to go to Swansea Marina. They packed a picnic lunch and rented a boat and sailed out on the Gower coastline, soaking up the little bit of sun they could. They tanned under the sun, at the bow of the boat, and fell asleep, content in each other’s arms.

They spent a whole other day at Swansea Beach. Beaches were nothing new for Lilly, but somehow the fact she was on a white band beach, in _Wales_ , with her _husband_ , made all the difference. They lazed on top of sandy beach blankets underneath a giant umbrella. They walked along the shore, the tide lapping at their heels as they searched for shells to take home with them. They waded into the ocean, shrieking as the waves swelled around them, Mordred grabbing onto Lilly, his kisses tasting like salt and wind.

They visited Weobly Castle and Lilly cried at how beautiful and _old_ it was, because she was from _Florida_ , and nothing was around in Florida from the 15th century—certainly not cool old, beautiful, possibly haunted, castles full of history and lives and stories. They hiked the Celtic Trails, and Lilly’s breath got caught in her throat at all the green and the cliffs and the water, all existing together, all of them stunning, all of them worthy of two dozen photos.

But as many days as they spend out touring around Swansea, they spent just as many in their hotel, fumbling underneath sheets, their sweaty bodies joining with another. Taking raunchy photos in fits of passion. Painting naked bodies. Playing guitar and writing songs about how in love they were. Sneaking into the pool for late night skinny dipping, too much champagne on their tongues. Their honeymoon was perfect. Lilly wasn’t sure she’d ever been as happy in those moments than she had been her entire life. She had never wanted to come home, back to real life.

 

“Sounds beautiful,” Morgana murmured as Lilly drifted away from her honeymoon tales.

Lilly cleared her throat before speaking, blinking back the tears that were finally threatening to spill down her cheeks. Her chest _ached_ , with the memory of Mordred’s smile and his eyes, his hand in hers, the feeling of being so content she would burst. She wanted that easy happiness back. Why was everything so hard now? She drew her knees to her chest and breathed deeply through her nose. “It was,” she finally said.

“Do you think you can take those memories and paint them? Take the happy moments with Mordred and keep them close?”

Lilly shook her head. “Won’t that make me hurt even more? It would just be a reminder I was happy once. I had everything in my grasp. And now it’s gone.”

“You don’t think you can be happy again?”

“In general? Or with someone who’s…not Mordred?”

“Both,” Morgana replied.

Lilly didn’t want to think about another honeymoon, sharing happy memories with anyone but Mordred. “What’s the point?” she asked. “None of them are going to replace Mordred. I’m not ready to want anyone else.”

Morgana nodded. “Of course you’re not. There’s no timeline for something like this, no right or wrong time to start moving on, accepting love from someone who’s not him. But you need to know that it’s okay to move on eventually. It’s okay to love, it’s okay to be happy without him. It doesn’t mean you’ll lose those memories, or that the new ones will replace the old. You’ll never forget your first love. But it’s okay to love someone else again.”

Lilly wasn’t sure she agreed. She shifted in her seat. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Sure,” Morgana said. “You did really well today, Lilly. Thank you for talking to me.”

“I don’t really have a choice,” Lilly mumbled.

Morgana laughed quietly. “No, I don’t suppose you do, do you? Still. You’re actually _talking_ to me. And whether you realise it or not, I do think you’re making progress. Baby steps, Lils. Baby steps.”

She kissed the top of Lilly’s head and let herself out of the house. Lilly sat there and stared at the blank, too white canvas she’d stuck in the corner of her room. She sat there, just staring, until her mother came home from work. _Could_ she ever learn to paint again? To feel happy? She didn’t think such a thing was possible anymore.


	6. Day 298 / September 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning in this chapter for attempted suicide. If I don't already have these tags set up, I will be adding them to the story. If you are sensitive to that, you can skip over the Day 298 section and read September 4.

_Day 298_

This was it. Lilly was done. She couldn’t do it anymore. Everything was just too _hard_. Maybe she was a coward. Maybe she was pathetic. Maybe she gave up too easily, but she didn’t _care_ anymore. Everyone was telling her she was getting better, that she could move on, that she could be happy. But she didn’t want to anymore. She just wanted to be dead. She wanted to be with Mordred and their unborn baby. She didn’t want to be a living, breathing thing anymore. Life just wasn’t for her anymore.

Lilly crept quietly into her mother’s bathroom. She wasn’t sure why she was being quiet. Her mother was at work; she was utterly alone in the house today. Still, she felt like she was doing something wrong, shameful. Like creeping around and being silent while she tried to kill herself somehow meant it wasn’t really happening.

Her mother kept the bottle of antidepressants she had been prescribed after Mordred died and it was clear she wasn’t moving on from the accent, was sinking into a hole of her own depression. Lilly had refused to take them, but Hunith kept the prescription just in case, kept it refilled and stocked in her medicine cabinet.

Lilly couldn’t believe she was about to abuse them the way she was. It was almost ironic that she was using antidepressants—a drug meant to _help_ her suicidal thoughts—to overdose on.

She didn’t know how many she needed for a fatal overdose, and she thought maybe her mom had been using them for herself, because she bottle was mostly empty. Lilly shook the rest of the pills into her hand and turned on the tap. She popped the pills into her mouth and drank straight from the sink.

Lilly walked back to her bedroom, taking out the worn photo of Mordred in her nightstand, and hugging it to her chest. She didn’t know how long it was supposed to take for the drugs to kick in. She hoped soon. She wondered if it hurt, to overdose. Or was it just like sleeping? Should she have chosen a more gruesome method of death? Was she romanticising the idea of suicide in her mind, making it out to be the one thing that was going to solve everything, instead of just sucking it up and facing her problems head on?

Probably, she thought to herself. But she didn’t care anymore. She felt her eyelids getting heavy. Was this the end? Would she go to Heaven? Would she see Mordred there, smiling at her, with arms wide open for her? Would she finally be happy again? And what about her baby? She drifted in and out of consciousness with thoughts of how hard it was to get pregnant, how excited she and Mordred had both been at that first positive pregnancy test…

 

_September 4_

“Damn it!” Lilly yelled, chucking the pregnancy test at the wall, plastic pieces breaking apart and spilling all over the bathroom floor. She closed her eyes, chin trembling, fighting back tears. Why was this happening?

She breathed heavily, trying to contain her anger and disappointment. She just wanted to get pregnant. She’d been married to Mordred now for almost a year and a half, and they had both agreed they wanted to start a family.

They were doing everything all right. She stopped taking birth control months ago and Mordred stopped wearing a condom and they had a calendar synched up with what days and times she would be ovulating and _nothing worked_. And finally, _finally_ , she was two weeks late for her period, and she thought, _maybe this time it’s for real_.

But there were no two clear pink lines confirming her pregnancy. She was barred. She was never going to have a baby. She just wanted to start a family with Mordred. She _wanted_ to be pregnant. What was _wrong_ with her?

She took a couple more deep breaths and swiped at the tears on her cheeks and picked up the broken pregnancy test off the floor and threw it in the trash. Maybe it was defective. She should get some blood work done instead. Why else would she be _two weeks_ late for her period?

She tried to busy herself with painting while she waited for Mordred to come home. When he did eventually come home, he was all smiles, and forehead kisses, and Lilly was grumpy and didn’t want to be nice. She just wanted to sulk.

They ate dinner together in silence, Lilly sullenly picking at her food. She felt bad, because Mordred went through all this trouble to make one of her favourite meals, and she was so miserable that she could barely choke it down.

She heard Mordred place his fork on his plate and saw him look up at her. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked.

“No,” she bit out.

Mordred rolled his eyes. “You can’t just shut me out, Lilly.”

“Don’t tell me what I can do,” she barked.

Mordred scowled. It wasn’t fair she still found him attractive, even when he was annoyed with her. “Fine,” he said. “Don’t fucking tell me. Let’s just fucking sit in silence again. Because that’s all we ever do. We don’t ever talk anymore. You’re always pissed about something and you won’t _tell me_ and I’m done trying, Lilly, I _swear to God_.”

His chair scraped noisily across the kitchen floor as he got up from the table and slammed the door to their bedroom.

Lilly swallowed the lump in her throat and carefully carried hers and Mordred’s plates to the sink and washed them, drying them and sticking them back in the cupboards. She would give him some time to cool down, she thought. He wasn’t really done trying.

She sat on the couch in their living room, staring at her hands, spinning her wedding ring around her finger. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there for when she heard Mordred clear his throat.

She looked up and saw him staring at her, leaning against the door frame of their bedroom. His dark eyes were sad, upset. She knew it was her fault.

“Can I sit?” he asked.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

He sat down next to her on the couch. Just sitting, not daring to speak until he could sum up all his thoughts coherently. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier tonight,” he finally said. “I didn’t mean to get so angry. But Lilly, it hurts to see you like this. I _know_ something is wrong. And it hurts you won’t talk to me about it. Since when did we keep secrets? What’s so wrong that it’s something you can’t share with me? Because, honey, it’s affecting our marriage. If you can’t talk to me about the important stuff…”

“I know,” she whispered. She closed her eyes, steeling herself to talk about what was happening. “I took a pregnancy test,” she said.

Mordred stiffened beside her. “Okay,” he said. He waited for her to explain.

“I’m not pregnant.”

“Okay,” he repeated, still waiting.

“I probably won’t ever be if it hasn’t happened already.”

Mordred’s body slumped next to her as he reached for her hand. “That’s not true, love.”

“But it is, isn’t it? We’ve been trying for _months_ , Mordred. And nothing’s happened. And my period’s late. I thought it was finally happening. And it’s not.”

“Babe,” he whispered, gathering her in his arms, his lips at her forehead again as tears streamed down her face.

“It’s not fair,” she said.

“I know,” he said softly.

“I want a family with you.”

“We can still have a family,” he said. “We can adopt or—”        

“I don’t want to adopt, I want to be pregnant,” she said stubbornly.

“Babe, it might not be possible. If you really want a family, we can look into all the alternatives, but you have to be prepared that it might not happen naturally any time soon. If it makes you feel any better, we can set a doctor’s appointment. We can see if there’s something wrong, why it might be taking so long. Would that make you feel better?”

Lilly nodded, sniffling.

Mordred chuckled. “Okay. I’ll call the doctor in the morning.”

“I’m sorry I’m so awful,” Lilly said.

“That’s okay, love. We all have our faults. I forgive you.”

She nodded. “We’re okay?”

“Yeah, we’re okay.”

“Good. Because I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Me neither, Lilly. Me neither.”

They sat on that couch that night, holding each other, falling asleep in each other’s arms, feeling content for the first time in months.

 

“ _Lilly? Lillian!_ ”

The voice shouting her name sounded distant, remote, so far removed from her that she thought she was imagining it at first. Slowly, but surely, the voice got louder, until Lilly herself was wincing, waking up from her dreamless state.

Lilly groaned and turned over, pushing her mother away from her. Hunith had been shaking her hard for the last five minutes, shouting her name, on the phone with the 911. Lilly’s breaths had been shallow, her heart beat slow, barely there. She heaved a sigh of relief as Lilly came to.

“What happened?” Lilly mumbled.

“What did you take?” Hunith asked.

“What?”

“ _What did you take?_ What pills did you take?”

Lilly swallowed. Her throat was dry. It was like swallowing cotton. “The antidepressants,” she said. There was no point in lying. She wasn’t dead. She hadn’t taken enough to kill her, just knock her out for a few hours. She couldn’t even die properly. What kind of world was this that wouldn’t allow her to be with Mordred?

Hunith pursed her lips and left the room, speaking to the emergency responder on the other line. When she came back in the room, she sat at the foot of Lilly’s bed, her eyes hard.

“Get your clothes on,” she said. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t care what you need, Lillian. I have to make sure the pills don’t have lasting side effects. You may not want to be alive but I’m not going to sit by and watch you kill yourself. Get your clothes on now. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

She left the room as suddenly as she’d come.

Lilly blew her bangs out of her face with a huff of air. Well, she thought, she’d certainly fucked that one up, didn’t she?


	7. Day 247 / May 17

_Day 247_

Lilly’s fingers fiddled a little nervously as she sat in the room, waiting for Morgana and their therapy session. She wasn’t sure what she was going to talk about today. It was a relatively good day, and she had been trying to focus on all the good Mordred memories, rather than the broken, bloodied version where he left her too soon and she was stuck here alone in her own perpetual hell.

Morgana smiled at her as she let herself in. “Hello hello,” she said, sitting across from Lilly, setting her bag down on the floor beside her.

Lilly smiled back at her. It was a close-lipped smile, and it didn’t reach her eyes, but it was a smile nonetheless. Progress, she told herself. Baby steps.

“Good day?” Morgana asked.

Lilly nodded. “Somewhat.”

“Good,” Morgana murmured. “Do you want to talk about another good memory?”

Lilly nodded again. “I’m trying to decide which one to talk about.”

“What’s the last good memory you have with Mordred?”

Lilly smirked, her mind drowning in Mordred’s gorgeous grin. “Baby names,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“Mordred and I were picking out baby names.”

“Oh.” Morgana shifted in her seat. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

“Yeah, I think I would.”

 

_May 17_

It was a relatively normal, boring, lazy Sunday Lilly and Mordred were having. He was at the desk on his laptop, working on something (probably song lyrics. It was always song lyrics with him.) and Lilly was sitting up in bed, perusing through a book.

“Hmm,” she murmured.

“What?” Mordred asked, not looking up from what he was typing.

“What do you think of the name Persephone?”

“….Like the Greek goddess?”

She hummed in affirmation.

“It’s all right. Why?”

“No, for the baby. What do you think about naming her Artemis? If it’s a her, of course.”

“I think I should be asking why we’re naming our child after a Greek goddess.”

“Well, aren’t all the good names in Arthurian legend taken up? All of our names are rooted in some kind of legend or mythology, I figured I’d just start on another form. We could go the Roman route and name her Proserpina. Or we could take a name from Norse mythology, like Freya.”

Mordred smiled softly at her. “Okay,” he said. “Mythology names.”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “I can work with that. But not Persephone. What about Aphrodite? Or Athena? Ariadne?”

“I like Artemis,” Lilly said.

“We’re not naming our son Apollo, though.”

“Okay, noted. What other Greek god names do you like?”

“Well, not Zeus. Or Hades. Or Poseidon.”

Lilly laughed. “What is there left?”

“Hephaestus. That’s a no. Hermes? Sounds too much like herpes.”

Lilly giggled and put a hand on her stomach. She couldn’t believe she was finally pregnant. She was finally going to have a baby. One that was all hers and Mordred’s. It was going to be beautiful.

“There’s Ares, god of war. Or we could go Greek hero route. Heracles, Jason, Achilles, Perseus.”

“Eh.” Mordred scrunched his nose up at the names. “What’s Artemis the goddess of?”

“The hunt, virginity, wilderness. Childbirth.”

Mordred smiled. “Childbirth, huh? Sounds perfect.”

“Sometimes the moon, too, when people tend to forget about Selene.”

“And Apollo’s the sun god?”

“When people forget about Helios, sure.”

“What’s Apollo’s Roman name?”

“Apollo.”

Mordred quirked an eyebrow up.

“What? He didn’t get a Roman name.”

“Uh huh. What’s Helios’s Roman name?”

“Sol.”

“Sol,” Mordred repeated, then nodded his head. “I like that one.”

“Sol?”

“Yeah.”

“Artemis if it’s a girl, Sol if it’s a boy?”

“Think it’s too strange?”

Lilly snorted. “Your name is Mordred. I think people are expecting a little weird from us.”

Mordred smirked. Lilly smiled back for a second, then let the smile drop to stare at her hands, fidgeting.

Mordred got up from the desk chair and went to sit next to her. “Hey,” he said softly, brushing her hair out of her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you think it’s too soon?” she asked. “For baby names?”

“Why would it be too soon?”

“Well, we haven’t made it 12 weeks yet. There’s still time for a first trimester miscarriage. The doctor said I might not be able to carry this baby to term. What if we pick out these names and get attached and then something happens?”

Mordred’s lips brushed against her hair. “It’s okay to want this baby, love. The only thing we can do is keep living. If something happens, we’ll get through it. But we can’t let the fear of what may happen stop us from getting excited, from loving this baby. Okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “You’re right.”

She sighed.

Mordred pulled back to look into her eyes. “I love you, you know.”

“I love you too,” she said.

He put a hand on her stomach. “And baby Artemis. Or baby Sol. I would be happy with either one.”

“No preference?” she asked.

“Nah.” Mordred smiled. “I’m going to love this baby no matter what. It’ll be the best part of us.”

They stayed in bed the rest of the day, talking about nursery colours and what kinds of furniture and baby supplies they wanted. They were finally going to be parents. Everything was right in the world.

 

“Artemis and Sol,” Morgana mused. “Strong, beautiful names.”

“Yeah.” Lilly smiled softly. “They were good names.”

“How long was this before the miscarriage?”

“Three weeks.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Everyone’s sorry,” she said back.

“Your doctor said you might not be able to carry the baby to term?”

Lilly nodded. “I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Makes it harder to get pregnant and comes with a higher risk of miscarriage.”

“Ah,” Morgana said. “Because I’ve done my research of miscarriages. Contrary to popular belief, people don’t miscarry because of stress. The stress of losing Mordred isn’t the reason for your miscarriage. You know that, right?”

“I know. It’s just easier to place Mordred dying for me losing the baby. Because then I’ll have to admit it’s because of me it never got to live, that there’s something wrong with my body. I’m the reason for the miscarriage.”

Morgana shook her head. “It’s no one’s fault, Lilly,” she said. “You couldn’t have prevented this. No one could have. It’s nothing to feel guilty over.”

“Sure,” Lilly said.

“No, I need you to hear me. Your miscarriage wasn’t your fault. No matter the circumstances, it wasn’t your fault. I know Mordred would say the same. Hasn’t he told you that? That it would be all right if you miscarried, that it wouldn’t be your fault?”

“Yes.”

“Good. So listen to him. Don’t put words in his mouth now that he’s gone. He didn’t blame you when he was alive. He wouldn’t blame you if he were still alive after the miscarriage. So don’t blame yourself, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good,” Morgana nodded.

Lilly rubbed her eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was tired or because there were tears and she needed to get rid of them.

“I think that’s enough for today, don’t you?” Morgana asked.

“Yeah,” Lilly agreed.

“Okay. Call me if you need anything. I’ll see you next week. Unless you want me to stay. Must be lonely being here alone when your mum’s working.”

“I kind of like the solitude,” Lilly said.

“Okay,” Morgana said. “Still, call if you need me.”

“Sure.”

Morgana let herself out. Lilly dug out the book of baby names she had bought, thumbing through the pages to see if either Artemis or Sol were listed amongst the names. They weren’t.


	8. Day 365 / August 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is when the story gets a little bit Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in that sorcerers perform procedures to erase people from existence. A little different from the movie, but entirely inspired by it. I hope you enjoy this chapter and it’s not too confusing.

_Day 365_

Lilly woke up that morning with a clear vision and a decision already made up in her mind.  She was going to do it.  She was sick of living this way and she wanted it to be over.  No amount of therapy was going to change her status and suddenly make losing Mordred and her baby okay.  No amount of time passed was going to heal anything.  She was going to be sad forever and the only way to stop the pain was either to die or to forget.  She’d tried choosing death, and that didn’t work. This time she was choosing to forget.

When she got out of bed, her mom had a note written on the fridge door that she was out getting groceries and would be home soon.  That left Lilly an easy way to get her decision started.  She grabbed the house phone and dialled the number she knew by heart now and held her breath as she waited for someone to pick up.  When they did, she made the appointment for tomorrow at noon and put the phone back in its carrier.

Things were going to change now, they were going to be different, better.  She was sure of it.  And somehow knowing that things were going to be okay made the weight in Lilly’s chest ease up a bit, enough that she actually felt okay to be alive for once.  She was okay to turn on a little music.  She was okay to cook herself breakfast, because tomorrow she wouldn’t remember a thing.  Mordred and her baby will have never existed.  And then she wouldn’t know what it’s like to have felt their loss.

She was just flipping an omelette onto her plate and humming along to The Smiths when Hunith entered the kitchen, pulling her dark hair back into a bun for work.  She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of Lillian, music on, cooking breakfast, with a smile on her face.  “Did you become a pod person overnight?” she whispered.

Lilly giggled.  She hadn’t giggled in ages.  Her mother was looking at her like someone had come in and replace her daughter with a new and improved copy.  “Not a pod person.  I just finally decided.”

“Decided _what_?” Hunith asked.  She sat down at the bar as Lilly shut the burner off and got a fork from the silverware cabinet.

“Decided I’m sick of being sad all the time.”

Hunith was quiet.  “Just like that?”

Lilly shrugged.  “No.  I’ve been thinking of how to stop the pain for a while now.  Killing myself wasn’t an option, so I’ve had to…improvise.”  She took a bite of her omelette and swallowed, waiting for Hunith to understand what she was saying.

“Improvise how?”  Her mother’s voice was low and murderous.  Lilly was almost too afraid to look at her.

“I called them.  I have an appointment tomorrow.  I can make the memories of Mordred go away.”

Hunith violently shook her head.  “Lilly, no!  This is not the way to do this!  You don’t need to resort to magic, you can—”

“I’ve tried, Mom!” Lilly yelled, her plate clattering as she set it down harshly on the island.  “Don’t you think I’ve been trying?  Therapy helps, but it never gets better!  It’s never going to get better!  I want to paint again!  I want to be able to listen to a record or watch a tv show without crying.  I want to feel the sun again!  I just want my life back, Mom, and I can’t do that if Mordred’s still in it.”

“Please, Lilly, think about what you’re doing!  You’re going to erase him from history.  Forever.”

Lilly swallowed.  “I know.  I don’t see another choice.  I can’t keep remembering him or our life together.  It’s my choice, and I’m sorry, but no one’s going to stop me on this one.”

Lilly and Hunith stared at each other for a few minutes.  Hunith’s blue eyes were sad, craving a way to help her daughter without destroying her life.  But then again, it had already been destroyed, hadn’t it?  Lilly _hadn’t_ gone back to herself, after all this time.  And no one expected her to go back to usual after a death—death always changed you—but they thought she would be a bit better by now.  She hated to admit Lilly was right, that she didn’t think her daughter was going to get better.  Morgana could work miracles, and yet she still couldn’t help Lilly heal from the pain in her heart.

Hunith sighed deeply.  “I’m gonna be late for work.  We’re talking about this tonight when I get home, okay?”

“There’s nothing to talk about!”

Hunith’s eyes pierced into her daughter’s again.  “Yes, there is.”

Lilly’s jaw worked.  “Fine.”

Hunith kissed her daughter’s dirty blonde hair and left the house.

 

They didn’t talk about it when Hunith got home. Hunith tried, pleaded with Lilly, but Lilly remained stubborn, set of her decision. She was tired of fighting, exhausted of being depressed and trying but failing to be happy. She didn’t want to try anymore. Besides, she had magic on her side. Loads of people went to see sorcerers for this kind of thing. This wasn’t news. It was…unconventional, and not something she ever thought she’d do, but the service was there. And she desperately needed to forget.

So she set an alarm and woke up the next morning. She turned on The Beatles and hummed along while she made breakfast. She chewed methodically and ignored as her mother tried one last desperate time to not go to her appointment. She went anyway.

Lilly nervously wrung her hands together as we waited in the waiting room, wondering exactly what was supposed to happen. She watched the other people in the room with her: a very sullen teenage girl with her equally sullen boyfriend, an older man with kind eyes twirling his wedding ring round and round on his finger, a harrowed looking woman in her mid-40s with a toddler on the floor in front of her, playing with blocks.

Finally, her name was called. She followed the woman to the end of the hall to a room, where she was greeted by a tall brunette woman. “Hello,” she said in a soft voice. “My name is Morgause. I’ll be the sorcerer you’ll be talking to today.”

“Okay,” Lilly said, trying to swallow down her nerves.

Morgause smiled at her. “You don’t need to be nervous. I know it’s a harrowing process, but I’ll answer any question you have.”

Lilly nodded.

“Would you like to know what the procedure?”

“Yes, please.”

“Okay. First, we’ll just talk. You’ll tell me about the person you want to erase. Their name, their age, what they look like, your fondest memories. It’s easier to erase someone from existence if I have all the details I need.”

“Okay,” Lilly nodded.

“Next will be actually erasing them. It doesn’t hurt, so don’t worry about that. There is no lasting damage besides the memory loss of the specific person in question. What I’ll do is place both my hands on the sides of your head, and say an incantation so I have access to all your memories. If I’ve done my job right and the spell works, you won’t be able to feel me in your mind. Got it?”

“Got it,” Lilly confirmed.

“Good. Now, I won’t go rooting through all of your memories. I’ll use the details of the person you described to sort through all of them, cherry pick any memory that has to do with them, and erase them using spells. Once all your memories of the person have been erased, I will say one final incantation to wipe them from the world. It will be as if they never existed. Then I’ll let go, and you won’t remember who they are.”

“Okay. There are no side effects from this?”

“Well, you may be a little dizzy after the process. It’s a very tiring set of spells. But other than that, no. Some people we have treated have experienced a sense of loss, as if there’s a piece of their past missing, but they can’t place their finger on it. Your memories won’t come back, and there won’t be any brain damage sustained.”

“That sounds good.”

“Wonderful.” Morgause smiled. “If everything sounds good, I would like you to fill out these forms for me. They are for cautionary purposes, stating you understand everything I’ve told you and that you give us full consent for the procedure. It goes into all the details I’ve just relayed for you. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

She handed Lilly a clipboard and a pen, and Lilly settled into skimming over the pages, initialling and filling out information when needed. When she signed all of the paperwork, she gave the clipboard back to Morgause, who handed it to the nurse next to her.

“Thank you, Lilly. Nurse Olivia is going to be here to observe the process and help me in any way necessary if you’re comfortable with that?”

“Of course,” Lilly assented.

“Good. So let’s talk about the person you want erased. What’s their name?”

“Mordred.”

“Mordred,” Morgause repeated. “And who is Mordred in relation to you?”

“He was my husband,” Lilly said. “He died a year ago.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that. What does Mordred look like?”

“He had brown hair, very curly, very unruly. And he had dark blue eyes. He was a musician, so his hands were always calloused, but his forearms were strong. He was tall, and kind of lanky. Beautiful. He grew up in Wales, so he had a Welsh accent.”

“He sounds lovely, Lilly. Can you tell me about the first time you met?”

So Lilly did. She recounted the details of her 17th birthday, and how she had been missing her brother and Mordred had skated on up to her and cheered her up, how she felt butterflies in her stomach at the fact he wanted to get to know her. She didn’t leave out any detail.

“And what about the last time you saw Mordred?” Morgause asked. “Can you tell me about that day?”

Lilly sighed and nodded. She closed her eyes and settled in to tell about the last moments she ever saw Mordred alive.

 

_August 2_

Lilly couldn’t contain her excitement as she sat in the studio, listening to Mordred and his band record the last song for their album.  They had been working on it for months; they had been hardworking and dedicated to the end, and she was so happy that the album was finally coming together, being pieced into something coherent. They deserved every bit of the good luck they had been having in the studio.

The band ended the song and Mike, their tech man, told them to take a break while he listened to the recording they’ve gotten so he could re-record any parts that might need a little more work.

“Hey!” Mordred said, smiling wide and running up to Lilly. He kissed her on the lips and grinned down at her, placing a hand on her stomach. “Hello to you too, baby.”

Lilly smiled.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m good. I’m really happy for you guys. You’re almost done recording.”

“I know! Now comes the hard work. We’ve got to actually make our songs presentable. Recording was only half the battle, now we’ve got to mix them.”

“Well, you all sound good. Your songs are solid. I mean, they’re really good, Mordred. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, love.” He kissed the top of her head. “Not that I don’t love you surprising me at the studio, but what brings you to my corner of the world.”

“Artist’s block,” she said. “I couldn’t find any inspiration on what to paint. Figured getting out of my own studio into another might help the creative juices flow.”

“Ah. I’m sure something good will come to you soon.”

“Me too. I’ve just gotta get out of my own head for a bit.”

Mordred nodded. “Are you staying or is this just a pit stop?”

“Just a stop,” she said. “I’m going out with Melanie. Figure some girl time will do me good. I just wanted to stop in and say goodbye before I left.”

“Much appreciated. Have a fun time tonight. And tell Mel I said hi.”

“Will do.”

“Okay. I love you,” Mordred said, bending down to kiss her again.

“Love you too,” Lilly said back.

Mordred grabbed his guitar by the neck and went back into the studio. She watched as the band got settled back into recording mode, and then left the studio for Melanie’s.

She got the call two hours later. Her phone rang and when she peered down at it, the Caller ID claimed it was the hospital in her area. It was the hospital her mom worked at, so she didn’t automatically think there was anything strange about it. Maybe her mom’s phone died and she was calling Lilly to bring her a charger. It had happened before.

“This is Lilly Mikaelson,” she answered.

“Hi, this is Kelsey at Jackson Memorial. Are you the wife of Mordred Mikaelson?”

“Yes, that’s me,” she said. This was about Mordred?

“Your husband has been brought into the emergency room. There was a traffic accident.”

Lilly’s heart sank into her stomach. She couldn’t breathe. Oh, God, was this really happening.

“Is…” She cleared her throat and then tried to speak again. “Is he all right?”

“Your husband’s injuries are very severe, ma’am. We’ve got our best trauma surgeon working on him now. He’s in surgery, if you would like to come. We’ll know more about his status after the surgery.”

“Yes, okay thank you very much.”

Lilly dropped her phone without hanging up. God, she couldn’t breathe. She was terrified. Was it supposed to hurt this much? Why couldn’t she breathe?

She worked on taking deep, even breaths and remembered that Melanie was in the room with her, practically screaming in her face, asking what was going on?

“Mordred was in an accident,” she said. Her voice sounded hollow, tinny and far away. “He’s in surgery.”

“Shit,” Melanie said. Lilly could hear the sound of Melanie grabbing her car keys off the counter. “I’m driving you to the emergency room now,” she said. “He’s at Jackson?”

Lilly nodded her head.

“Okay. I’m driving you there now,” she repeated. “Come on.”

She grabbed Lilly’s arm and led her to the car.

“I’m calling your mom when we get there,” Melanie said.

“No, she’s already at work. Have someone page her.”

“Okay. Then I’m calling your brother.”

“No, I don’t want to bother him.”

“Lilly, Mordred’s in surgery. You need your family there to support you. You aren’t bothering Merlin or Arthur, okay? I’m calling them. End of discussion.”

“Okay.”

Lilly sat there the entire car ride, in a daze, scared and stunned and too full of emotion to process what was happening.

Melanie led Lilly into the emergency room and took them up to the front desk.

Lilly cleared her throat. “Hi, my name’s Lilly Mikaelson. I was called about my husband, Mordred. He was brought in because of a traffic accident?”

The woman at the desk typed some words into her computer and nodded her yes. “Mordred, yes. He’s in surgery with Dr Navarro right now, Mrs. ap Nudd. If you want to take a seat and wait for the doctor, he will be out with information just as soon as he’s done with the surgery.”

“Okay,” Lilly said woodenly.

“Is there someone we can call?” she asked.

“Um, you can page my mom? She’s a nurse here. Hunith Emrys? Can you just page her and have her come here?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

Lilly and Melanie sat in the waiting room. Lilly tuned out while Melanie called up first Mordred’s father and then Lilly’s brother Merlin and informed him on the situation. Merlin informed Melanie that he and Arthur would be on the next flight out of London to come see them.

Hunith made her way to the emergency room not long after, and sat there with Lilly and Melanie, holding Lilly’s hand and waiting anxiously for the news. Mordred’s father Cerdan entered not long after and joined them in the waiting area, just as scared as the rest of them.

After a few hours, a tired man in blue scrubs entered the emergency room. “Mrs. Mikaelson?” he called.

Lilly jumped to her feet. “That’s me.”

“I’m Dr Navarro,” he said, shaking her hand.

“Hi.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Your husband made it through surgery, but his injuries were extensive. His ribs were broken and a piece of bone pierced his lung. The lung collapsed in the ambulance on the way here. He also sustained a serious head injury. We’re keeping him in a medically induce coma right now to help heal his injuries. We’re worried about possible brain swelling. We don’t know the lasting effects of the head trauma until he wakes us.”

Serious brain injury. Collapsed lung. Lilly couldn’t breathe again, terrified she was going to lose Mordred.

“What happened?” she asked. “They said it was a traffic accident.”

Dr Navarro nodded. “Yes. Your husband and two other passengers were struck by another car at an intersection.”

It must have been Leon and Kara. They had driven to the studio together; they must have finished their session and were driving home.

“Are the other passengers okay?” she asked.

“I can’t release much information, but their injuries were not as severe as Mordred’s. Mordred was in the front passenger seat of the car, where the other driver struck them. He received the brunt of the impact.”

Leon must have been driving then. And it wasn’t Leon’s fault. Mordred just drew the short straw. “And how is the driver? The one that hit him? Is everyone in that car okay?”

“The driver was the only one in the car,” Dr Navarro informed her. “Blood tests confirmed the driver of the vehicle was has a blood alcohol level of .12%. That’s over the legal limit.”

The breath Lilly had been holding in released. All of this because of some stupid drunk driver. Her husband might not make it because some dumb idiot got into their car and chose to drive after drinking. Why was this happening.

“Are we allowed to see Mordred?”

“Yes, he’s out of surgery and as I said, in a medically induced coma right now, so we will be asleep. You and other family members are welcome to see him during visiting hours. He is resting in room 214.”

“Okay, thank you,” she said.

Dr Navarro nodded and Lilly went back to Hunith and Cerdan and relayed the information back to them.

Then came the waiting game. Spending as much time as they could with Mordred, talking to him and playing the music that he liked, and hoping he would get better. It killed Lilly to see him hooked up to so many tubes. He had a breathing machine, helping breathe for him. She didn’t like it. Merlin and Arthur had made their way to the hospital and had been a really big help keeping their place clean and doing laundry and making sure Lilly had food and water in her system.

Leon and Kara dropped by, too, after they had been released from the hospital. Thankfully they had only suffered minor injuries. Kara had a couple of scraped and bruises, and Leon had broken his wrist, but the pair survived, and that’s what mattered. Leon had tried to apologise profusely, but Lilly was adamant that there was no need. Leon wasn’t the one that drove drunk. It wasn’t his fault. He had nothing to do with it.

And then there was the police that made the visit, checking on Mordred’s progress. The driver to had hit Leon’s car was being charged with a DUI officially, and his license was being taken away. If Mordred died, his charges would be considered manslaughter.

But things were looking up in those days after surgery. His injuries were healing, his doctor said, and they were expecting the surgery to be a success.

It wasn’t.

The stress of the surgery put too much of a strain on Mordred’s heart, and he stopped breathing. Just flatlined, right there, lying in his hospital bed. The doctors did everything they could to revive him, but Mordred couldn’t breathe on his own. He was gone, and Lilly was left alone, scared, pregnant, and unsure what to do without the person who brought the sunshine into her life.

She wanted to die alongside with him.

 

Lilly opened her eyes after she finished telling Morgause about Mordred’s death. Reliving his death made her want to forget about him even more, and she was eager to get on with the procedure. Morgause was writing things down, and flipping through pages in a spell book, looking for the right incantation to erase Mordred from the world.

“Thank you for reliving the details with me,” Morgause said. “I believe I have everything we need to begin the process. Whenever you’re ready, I would like for you to lie down on your back for me.”

Lilly did as she was told, and Morgause wheeled her chair until she was positioned behind Lilly’s head.

“Okay, Lilly, now I’m going to place my hands on the sides of your head, like this.” She gently places her hands on either side of Lilly, holding her head in place. “Are you okay so far?” she asked.

“Yes,” responded.

“Okay. Now I’m going to start the incantation and begin the process of removing your memories of Mordred. Whenever you’re ready, let me know.”

Lilly took a deep breath and closed her eyes, breathing out through her mouth. This was what she wanted. It was going to make her better. It’s what she needed to do in order to be happy.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

She heard Morgause speak words in a foreign language, and then her mind was flashing through all her memories of Mordred. From the first day they met, through all of the days spent with him—that first summer they spent as a couple, the day they got engaged, the costume party with all their friends, the honeymoon in Swansea, the negative pregnancy test, picking out baby names, the last time she said goodbye to Mordred and the accident that took his life…all of it flashed through her mind, fading like a wisp of smoke as soon as it was there. Morgause went through all the memories, taking them out of Lilly’s mind, until Mordred no longer existed for her.

She said her final last words of the spell, making sure no one else would remember Mordred, either, and then she let go of Lilly’s head, releasing the magic that flew through her, exhausted.

Lilly’s eyelids fluttered open and she blinked at Morgause, slowly sitting up.

Morgause smiled at her. “Hi, Lilly. How are you doing?”

“I’m good. A little dizzy.”

“That’s normal to be a little dizzy after.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“You had a small magical procedure done, nothing to concern yourself with.”

“Oh.” Lilly blinked. “Okay.”

Morgause smiled at her again. “Our nurse Olivia will take you out to the recovery area now. You did very well, Lilly.”

Lilly smiled at her and followed Olivia out the door.

Days like this were always hard for Morgause. She remembered all the memories, all the people she erased. She remembered their faces, their stories. They only existed in her mind now. Every procedure was like that. And every procedure was harder than the last one.

But Lilly would have no memory of Mordred now, or the baby she had been expecting with him. In her world, they never existed. And she could live now, free of guilt and sorrow. That’s what made it all worth it to Morgause.


	9. One Year Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was out of town and then had some family medical drama, so here is the final ending. It's more like an epilogue, but it is the very end of the story and wraps everything up. If anyone actually read this, thank you so much. I had this sitting halfway done in a folder for years and finally got enough motivation to actually finish it and then post it.

_One Year Later_

Lillian’s eyes fell down to the pavement beneath her feet.  They studied the faded and scuffed black Chucks, coming in and out of her view as she walked.  Her hand came up to grasp the cigarette in her mouth as she inhaled the smoke and blew it out.  She looked up at the sky, the sun shining down on her face, its warmth radiating within her body.  It _should_ have been a good day for her, and yet there was an ache in her chest.  And she couldn’t explain why.

It felt like there was a piece of her heart removed.  It felt like there was something fringing on the edges of her existence, she just couldn’t remember it.  Sometimes she felt like she was close to regaining some hidden, repressed memory, some memory that was all sunshine and smiles and laughs and warm summer days, but as soon as it seemed close it darted back out of her line of sight and it left her feeling emptier than she had before.

That’s what she felt like at the moment.  Like the sun beaming on her face was supposed to have triggered some kind of beautiful memory, but it was too far for her to reach.  It was like the sun was supposed to make her happy, bright.  Lillian wasn’t a gloomy person, she was just lonely.  Her smiles were given to people sparingly.  She communicated with people through glances rather than words.  She told people how she felt with her art and not with her emotions.  She didn’t make long term friendships or relationships.  She went home alone and curled up on her sofa, still in her dress and stockings, with a glass of white wine and her cat Morrissey to listen to a record or watch telly.  She’d taken up smoking thinking it would fill a void she had in her life, but then it just became another one of her addictions, something that became a part of her that she couldn’t let go of.  Lillian wasn’t unhappy, she was just alone.  And she mostly preferred it that way.

Her shoes make a soft sound on the pavement as she walks along.  She takes another drag off her cigarette and sniffs before blowing out the smoke.  She passed a girl arguing with someone on her cell phone.  She passed a couple of teenagers holding hands as they walked, sharing fries from a bag. 

Lillian smiled at this.  She didn’t remember what it was like to fall in love at 16.  She had dim memories of laughing along with her friends, of hanging out with people and having a good time, but she hadn’t ever met anyone who took her breath away, who electrified all her cells with a single touch, who kept her up till 4 am just thinking about how different her life was now that they’d come into it.  She’d gone to chip shops in London when she stayed there for a few months last spring, visiting her brother and his husband.  She wanted a change of scenery and a chance to check out the European art industry.  She’d made some acquaintances, went out to pubs, shared a few drunken kisses with boys, but she’d never wanted it to be forever.  Maybe she wasn’t meant to be with anyone.  Thinking of being with anyone so long term made something in her stomach twist, sent an ache right through her heart.

The same thing happened when she went to the park, which she did often.  Sometimes her feet would move to them of her own accord.  She’d find herself sitting on the swings, smoking a cigarette, contemplating life.  She would see parents watching their kids screech and laugh, run around the playground in blissful glee.  She smiled sadly at the mothers who held their kid’s hand or hugged them or played games with them.  She didn’t know why it made her feel nostalgic.  It’s not like she was ever a mother.  No chance that had ever happened, or ever will.  She’d gotten her cat to make her feel less haunted by the fact she wasn’t ever going to have a kid of her own.

It had begun to happen again when she looked through some of her old books, sketch pads, and paintings.  She had books on Arthurian legend.  She’d sketched multiple ideas and images surrounding the figures in the legend and discovered those sketches come to fruition—well, most of them.  There was a golden dragon on a red shield, a crest for the Pendragon household.  There was Excalibur, stuck fast in stone.  There was a huge golden dragon tending to a smaller white one.  She wondered if the reason she loved the legends so much was because her family was named after them.  And for some strange reason, her favourite character after re-reading the old legends was Mordred, and she always wondered why the boy with no real claim to the throne, who let his mother manipulate him into getting revenge on King Arthur, who mortally wounded the king at the Battle on Camlann, who supposedly took the throne of Camelot and in some instances took Guinevere as his queen, the boy who was a product of incest and was saved from being executed by chance, was her favourite.  It made no sense, but that tug of memory, that pull to remember, was strong every time she read his name, and so Mordred had become the character she liked best, and that was that.

Lillian reached her apartment building.  She crushed the cigarette under the sole of her shoe and walked in the building, up the elevator, and to her door.  She unlocked it and the door closed behind her with a snitch.  She put her purse down on the table as her cat Morrissey curled his body around her ankles.  She reached down to pet his fur.  She picked him up and sauntered over to her fridge, looked inside at the limited contents.  She took out a carton of leftover Thai food and stuck in in the microwave.  Then she opened up a can of Morissey’s food and sat it down.  The cat got straight to eating.  Lillian picked up an empty bowl and filled it with water before she sat it back down near Morrissey.  The microwave beeped and she took out the carton, grabbed a fork from the silverware drawer and slammed it shut before collapsing on her sofa and grabbing the remote to turn her television on.

She flipped through the channels, trying to find something good to watch, as she stuck her fork in the carton and blew on the Thai food to cool it before she ate it.  It still tasted good, like it always did.  She probably ate Thai too much but she didn’t care.  For some reason she just had a thing for it.  She turned the tv off when she couldn’t find anything good and continued to eat her food.  Morrisey jumped on the couch and nosed at her palm.  Lillian buried her hand in his fur, loving the sound of his purring, loving the way it felt when his paw kneaded the fabric of her dress.  She kissed the top of Morrissey’s head.  “What should we watch tonight, Morrisey?  Huh?” she asked her cat.

Morrissey looked up at her with his cat eyes and licked her palm affectionately, but provided no answer.  After a few more moments Morrissey abandoned her to curl up in her spot a few inches from Lillian.  Lillian took that as an opportunity to chuck the carton in the trash can and to browse her DVDs for something to watch.  She wasn’t in a mood to paint tonight, just rather to relax.  She idly wondered if the Chardonnay in her fridge was still there or if she needed to stock up on some more next time she went grocery shopping, but didn’t check.

She walked over to the stack of DVDs and her eyes automatically gravitated towards her classic _Doctor Who_ serials.  She didn’t know what it was about black and white things, but she loved them.  She loved that show with a fierce passion.  She enjoyed black and white movies, film noir, anything she could get her hands on.  Her mother always called her an old soul every time she visited her childhood home her mom still lived in, when they sat down to watch a Lana Turner or Bette Davis film.  She called her that when she listened to her records, the crooning voices from the 30s and 40s enveloping her.  _Doctor Who_ was a genre so different from those, but she loved the energy of it all the same, all the old serials and their wild stories that seemed to be so lost on the new series.  She searched through the stack to find her favourite Romana serials, she selected Nightmare of Eden and popped it in, curling back on the sofa, and enjoyed the sound of the theme song there to comfort her.

When her eyes got too heavy, she turned the tv off and beckoned Morrissey to follow her into her bedroom.  She took her dress and stockings off and got into a white tank top and cotton pyjama bottoms.  She slid into the cool sheets.  Morrissey settled himself on the pillow by her head and she turned off her lamp and fell into a dreamless sleep.

Lillian didn’t ever dream of anything solid anymore.  Sometimes she saw flashes of colour, eyes so blue it took your breath away.  Sometimes she heard a laugh she thought was familiar.  She saw messy brown hair, a large grin on someone’s face.  She remembered hands playing chords on a guitar, but once she woke up she didn’t remember any of it.  All she remembered was the familiar ache in her chest that stayed with her as she made her coffee, dressed in clothes she could get dirty in, put her hair in a messy bun on top her head, took care of Morrissey, and ate her cereal.  She left the apartment and locked up, automatically taking a cigarette from her purse and lighting it as she walked to her studio.

She did the same thing every day with a certain emptiness, a certain joy sucked out of her life.  Lillian appreciated beautiful things.  Her breath was taken away by art and music.  She enjoyed and loved her family and friends, but it all seemed so distant from her, so fake.  Like she was destined for another life, she just couldn’t put her finger on it.  Like she was grasping at remembering another life she had, a life where things were different, better.  A life where she was in love and happy, maybe a mother to a beautiful little girl who ran around laughing and screeching and not tainted by the dullness that life can provide.  Maybe that was her life, in an alternate universe, but someone took that from her and altered her life because of a single event gone wrong.  She didn’t know how those things worked.  Science had been her worst subject in school.

All Lillian knew was that she ached for something different, but she couldn’t reach out and take the things she wanted.  She wanted a family.  She wanted the sun to shine and light up her world again.  She wanted to feel whole.  But being whole didn’t work for her in this lifetime.  She knew it was something she could never achieve again.  Maybe you only get one lifetime to be happy, one chance at a perfect existence, and when it was over it left you hollow, and you could never get those happy memories back.  It sucks the life out of you altogether.

So Lillian accepted that fact.  She continued on with her life, not sad, but not happy either.  She existed.  She created art.  She took photographs.  She listened to her records.  She went out with friends.  She watched television.  She drank wine.  She visited her family.  She cuddled with her cat.  She did these things and sometimes she felt okay.  She let that peacefulness wash over her and keep her calm because it was real, it was tangible, it was the closest she could get to achieving enlightenment.  And even if she was destined to be alone until she died, she was okay with that.  At least she got a taste of happiness in a former life, and that was enough for her in this world.

Maybe she’d meet happiness again when she died.  She’d be waiting until then.


End file.
